PHOTO CREDIT: The Sun Nigeria / Toyin Falola Interviews Panel
Stakeholders Call on African Governments to Criminalise Harmful Witchcraft Accusations

African governments have been urged to enact laws that criminalise harmful witchcraft accusations and protect victims, as scholars warn that unverified supernatural claims continue to trigger violence, displacement, family breakdown and social exclusion.

The call was made during the Toyin Falola Interviews held on Sunday, August 30, on the theme “Witchcraft in Africa.” The session was chaired by Professor Toyin Falola and featured Professor Godwin Sogolo, Rev. Prof. Grace Sintim Adasi, Professor David Frankfurter, Dr. Claire Ayelotan and Professor John Azumah.

Speaking at the forum, Professor John Azumah said legislation should focus on harmful actions, not beliefs.

“It is not about legislating against the belief in witchcraft. It is about legislating against the accusations, holding people responsible and accountable,” he said. He decried a system where accused persons are forced to prove their innocence, insisting that the burden of proof should be reversed onto accusers.

Azumah noted that while African traditional beliefs deserve respect, they should not be used to destroy livelihoods, break families or ostracize people. He cited witch camps in Northern Ghana as an example of how accusations force victims out of their communities.

Dr. Claire Ayelotan said intervention must come before violence erupts.

“I believe the intervention should begin before the machete. Before the fire, before the crowd,” she said. She referenced common patterns where a child is repeatedly blamed for family misfortunes or an older woman is pushed out after a death in the family.

Ayelotan also stressed the role of religious and traditional leaders, saying pastors, imams, healers and community heads can address spiritual concerns without naming and targeting individuals. “A responsible pastor can pray without naming a child or a woman,” she said, adding: “None of this is a war on religion. It is a line between belief and harm. Believing is not the same as accusing a person.”

Professor Godwin Sogolo warned about the gravest consequence — the killing of innocent people — and called for reforms in how witchcraft is perceived and interpreted to ensure “no one is persecuted, tortured, or killed by an unverified supernatural claim.”

Rev. Prof. Grace Sintim Adasi said the continent must interrogate how it handles spiritual worldviews without allowing them to become tools for fear, gender discrimination and exclusion. She asked how Africa can “take African spiritual worldviews seriously without allowing accusations of witchcraft to become instruments of fear, gender discrimination, violence, or social exclusion.”

Professor David Frankfurter placed the African experience in a global historical context, noting that societies often look for human embodiments of evil to explain misfortune. He said attention should be paid to the “charisma and the claims of the so-called experts who identify them as evil beings,” adding that once labelled, a person “is no longer the individual person everybody knew in the community, but truly a monstrous opponent of society.”

SOURCE: The Sun Nigeria –