Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 77 THE WITCHES OF GHANA

00:00:00.960 I am Clare Mitchell, Doctor of Laws and King's Council.

00:00:04.080 And I am Zoe Vendetotsi, Doctor of Laws, Teacher and Writer.

00:00:07.840 On the 8th of March 2020, International Women's Day, we launched the Feminist Witches of Scotland

00:00:13.200 campaign. The Witchcraft Act, enforced between 1563 and 1736, saw thousands of people, mostly

00:00:21.360 women, accused and executed as witches in Scotland in the country's biggest and most brutal miscarriage

00:00:27.840 of justice. Our campaign had three aims, to get a formal state apology for those accused of witchcraft,

00:00:34.720 to obtain a pardon for all those convicted and to get a national memorial to remember those

00:00:39.840 involved in the Witchcraft Act. On International Women's Day 2022, the first of our aims was

00:00:45.840 realised when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a formal state apology to those accused as witches,

00:00:51.440 the first formal state apology ever. We are currently working with politicians to ensure

00:00:55.760 there's legislation passed to pardon those accused as witches, to change their status from convicted

00:01:00.820 witches to those who ought never to have been prosecuted. We continue our work to obtain a

00:01:05.960 national monument so those who suffered will never be forgotten. Join us as we speak to the experts

00:01:10.820 on the witchcraft trials, both here in Scotland and further abroad, as we explore the history of

00:01:15.800 women in Scotland and continue the cultural conversation of what it means to be a woman.

00:01:21.160 Well, thank you for being so patient, waiting for this most auspiciously numbered podcast episode.

00:01:30.220 Claire, what number is it?

00:01:31.780 It's 77, Zoe.

00:01:33.660 Which is my favourite number. Not 77, but 7.

00:01:37.000 So it feels special.

00:01:39.660 And actually, we're back with a bit of a humdinger of an episode

00:01:42.260 because we're going to be talking about a very modern issue,

00:01:45.180 but we'll come back to that in a minute.

00:01:46.520 I think before we get started, first of all, hello.

00:01:50.320 hello everybody hi hello hello i feel like we've spoken to just about everybody in the world that

00:01:57.720 has an interest in which is scotland by this point because the reason we've had this hiatus

00:02:02.320 is because we have been incredibly busy like busy in a really really good way but in a way that

00:02:08.580 meant that we just haven't had time to do the podcasts because on top of our regular jobs and

00:02:13.160 caring responsibilities as i believe it's now called we have been doing um the the all the

00:02:19.440 work that's associated with the publication and release of our book so the book came out

00:02:23.700 what's that clear i just didn't understand there was that much you know i just thought a book came

00:02:28.480 out and you just sat at home drinking cups of tea and to be fair i don't think there's usually as

00:02:33.980 many events as you and i actually did and are doing i mean i think we can't turn down an event

00:02:39.060 it's not it's not like us but we've gone a bit over the score we've taken on almost too much

00:02:47.140 but it's good though because our book came out in the uk so how to kill a witch a guide for the

00:02:52.760 patriarchy came out in may in uh in uk became a sunday times bestseller and we've done heaps of

00:02:59.860 events from cheltenham all the way up to claire was in inverness a couple of weeks ago meeting

00:03:05.100 some people and lots and lots of places particularly in scotland in between and then of course our book

00:03:11.080 came out in america what's it called in america claire it's called how to kill a witch the

00:03:15.500 Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women and it came out there at the end of September so Claire and I

00:03:20.780 did a little tour there where we kind of stuck to places that we could fly within an hour and a half 0.98

00:03:26.760 from New York City so we did about five events there which was completely brilliant we're planning

00:03:32.100 on going back to America in 2026 we're going back for New York Tartum Week and we're we're thinking

00:03:39.120 about where we can go from there and please let us know if there's somewhere you'd like us to go in

00:03:43.640 the united states of america and canada so we're trying to plan that i think we'll have at least

00:03:49.940 two visits out to north america next year what about australia that's not in north america yes

00:03:57.140 i understand that but i'm saying what about us going to australia we have to go to australia 1.00

00:04:01.200 there's so many quarrelsome dames i'd love to go to australia and if we go to australia then we're 1.00

00:04:05.600 definitely also going to new zealand because that's one of my favorite places i used to live

00:04:09.000 there for a couple of years love love love New Zealand loved Australia too but New Zealand has

00:04:13.900 my heart because I did my teacher training there so I'm very very fond of New Zealand so if there's

00:04:18.340 people in Australia and New Zealand and you know people that run book festivals or you know people

00:04:24.800 that own shops or you think that a bunch of people had come to a community hall somewhere

00:04:29.000 give us a shout and we'll see what we can do about coming out there because I'm really really keen

00:04:33.940 to go out to wherever people are buying the book and we know that it's all over the joint we'd love

00:04:38.080 to go and visit so thank you so much we greatly appreciate it but it's not just the book that's

00:04:43.160 been keeping us busy is it claire no what else has been keeping us busy i'm only joking i know

00:04:48.460 what else is what else is it claire the tartan has been keeping us very very busy because um

00:04:54.900 the memorial tartan as you know we had the kickstarter in may and then in july um with the

00:05:02.740 ability that we had from the Kickstarter we worked and have been working with Clare Campbell at

00:05:08.440 Prickly Thistle to make Witches of Scotland tartan and to bring it to you and we are just

00:05:15.120 absolutely delighted first of all that people totally get the idea like they understand the

00:05:20.440 idea of the remembrance the ancestry the original way of doing things the time that it takes to make

00:05:28.080 these things i mean i am like when i order something i just want it here now like why is

00:05:32.800 it not here now and it's really difficult for me to say to somebody this is going to take weeks but

00:05:38.840 we're so delighted weeks months this is but we're so delighted with the fact that people have totally

00:05:45.520 got on board with the idea and understand that if we're going to do this the right way they're

00:05:49.220 going to have to wait some time for um their tartan but um it's amazing and we're getting

00:05:55.760 pictures of people sending worldwide and it's amazing I saw a lady the other day who sent us

00:06:01.320 a picture of her kilt and she's standing on the Appalachian Trail or Appalachian Trail

00:06:06.680 it's so cool it's it's just so amazing the way that it's gone all over the place and what's

00:06:12.120 really gratifying for us about that means that every time people wear the tartan they tell us

00:06:17.340 and we know this from our personal experience people will come up to you strangers will come

00:06:20.900 up to you and say what's that tartan and then you can tell the story of it and it means that

00:06:24.760 these people are not forgotten and that is exactly what the job of something that's memorializing

00:06:29.240 should be doing and it also means that people are learning about the witch trials in scotland

00:06:34.200 because we've got this amazing clan of witches of scotland who know their stuff who are really

00:06:40.420 great actually at challenging myths as well and saying oh actually this is this is what happened

00:06:46.680 and are giving stats and it's just it's so wonderful one caveat though claire which is

00:06:52.820 that we are and I'm going to be really really clear about this we are only only selling through

00:06:59.840 witchesofscotland.com website if you see anything with our tartan on Etsy in kilt shops just online

00:07:10.100 generally it's not ours okay and it'll be an inferior product that is made with nylon somebody

00:07:16.840 got in touch with us and said oh your quality is not very good and unfortunately it turned out

00:07:20.900 that the poor woman or husband was trying to give her a nice surprise gift and he'd ordered it from

00:07:26.500 one of these dodgy dealers now of course it's not it's not just about the quality we want you to

00:07:32.280 have the best that there is but it's also about the fact that they're stealing other women's work

00:07:37.660 right so they're stealing women's work and making their own profit off it which is just gross i

00:07:43.100 think i think you'll all agree with that so if you want genuine witches of scotland tartan that's

00:07:48.080 made properly in the highlands zero waste sustainable traditionally done really done with

00:07:54.440 really good core ethics you can only get it from witches of scotland.com at the moment we're so

00:08:01.160 wildly busy that we've just got the scarves and we've got the three types of kilts we'll keep

00:08:06.220 opening up for pre-orders but we have to stagger them because the milk can only make so much and

00:08:10.520 you know what we're okay with that we're not trying to to pump out eight million scarves we

00:08:16.700 want it done properly and everybody understands that that kind of quality takes time so please

00:08:21.940 be careful and don't get hoodwinked by somebody selling rubbish absolutely can i also say and

00:08:27.140 zoe that you are an absolute champion of seeing this as well that we're so delighted that prickly

00:08:32.420 thistle because of our involvement in the witches of scotland tartan and because of all the work

00:08:38.720 they're doing have taken on four new members of staff and that is just brilliant to think that

00:08:45.360 there are additional people getting work in the highlands because it's preserving traditional

00:08:51.660 methods and it's looking after the planet for the future um we couldn't be prouder to be involved

00:08:57.020 with prickly thistle they're just a wonderful wonderful organization so go and have a look at

00:09:01.480 the website if you're interested no pressure you don't have to have the witches of scotland tartan

00:09:06.260 to be part of our clan it's just a thing that's there and we really appreciate people getting in

00:09:11.580 touch and we know it's expensive because it costs a lot to make really good traditional items from

00:09:16.140 good materials so we today are back with a podcast we've got another one recorded that hopefully

00:09:22.840 we're going to get out in the next week or two but the one today we thought that we would come

00:09:27.000 slap bang up to the modern day and we're going to be talking to two people that have got experience

00:09:33.460 in ghana with the witch camps in ghana but before we move on to that we're going to do a little

00:09:38.280 roundup of what Claire? Excellent lovely okay so the first thing we're going to kick off with

00:09:49.900 is something that happened a couple of weeks ago where the Israeli ambassador called the UN's

00:09:58.460 Francesca Albanese a witch after her report on Gaza okay so the Israeli ambassador said to her

00:10:07.480 that she was a witch um she had just given a report that he obviously wasn't happy with that

00:10:13.600 was called gaza genocide a collective crime she delivered that to the un general assembly

00:10:19.220 um just at the end of october there in which she accused the international community of complicity

00:10:24.780 in what she described as a genocidal war against the palestinian people israel's representative

00:10:30.080 danny danon told albanese and this is a direct quote if you can believe it in the year 2025 0.79

00:10:35.500 you are a witch and this report is another page in your spell book he accused her of trying to

00:10:42.220 curse israel with lies and hatred and he said every page of this report is an empty spell 1.00

00:10:47.640 and every accusation is a charm that does not work because you are a failed witch so not only 1.00

00:10:53.400 is he accusing her of being a witch he's accusing her of being a rubbish witch thankfully albanese 0.99

00:10:57.860 with her usual i think excellent manner she didn't she didn't bother particularly about it 0.99

00:11:03.840 and she mocked him and said back to him it is grotesque and frankly delusional that a state

00:11:08.820 accused of genocide cannot respond to the substance of my findings and the best thing

00:11:13.560 he resorts to is accusing me of witchcraft she said that if she did have the power to do spells

00:11:19.240 she would not use them for revenge but to stop crimes once and for all okay now i think it's

00:11:26.080 it's fascinating to me that a woman is being shut down or at least they're attempting to shut her

00:11:31.520 down by calling a witch. And we've been saying since the beginning of the campaign, as Margaret

00:11:36.400 Atwood has said, once that word starts getting used in the discourse, we've got some serious

00:11:42.260 concerns because we know where it goes from that. So we really, really need to be careful with that.

00:11:47.940 What else do we need to be careful of, Claire, that's just happened in North Dakota? 1.00

00:11:52.280 Well, following Roe v. Wade that was overturned, the rights of women in the US have been driven

00:12:00.100 backwards to a time that we didn't think we would see again and people's access to health care

00:12:05.840 is being seriously undermined to the extent that women are dying through lack of health care that

00:12:13.580 they can get and against this background the North Dakota Supreme Court has reviewed the

00:12:19.920 Supreme Court's abortion ban and has indicated that it will be back on the books as a crime

00:12:27.440 so it's now once again made a felony for doctors to perform the procedure except in medical

00:12:33.660 emergencies or in some cases of rape or incest i mean that begs the question of which cases of

00:12:41.000 incest are okay like is it okay if it's your dad but not if it's your brother like seriously like

00:12:46.460 how how is that ever even remotely justifiable no it's just it's absolutely repulsive um it says

00:12:55.460 Although three of the court's five justices agreed with the lower court, they fell short of the supermajority needed under state law to declare the laws unconstitutional.

00:13:06.760 And Mitra Medizadeh, the senior attorney at the Centre for Reproductive Rights said in a statement that the decision is a devastating loss for pregnant North Dakotans. 1.00

00:13:23.540 And I think that is absolutely true. I mean, the horror of not being able to get the medical care that you need when you know that that would be available to you, but you just can't get it.

00:13:37.600 It says as well in this article, which is from The Guardian, that six women have reportedly died after being unable to access abortions.

00:13:45.760 I mean, that's six women too many. In 2025, why are women being denied the right to access health care? It's absolutely disgusting. And if we think, if you're listening to this in the UK and you think, well, it's not going to happen here, you really need to be paying attention because we are following what's happening there.

00:14:03.960 money is flowing into the United Kingdom from the United States to try and prevent women from having

00:14:10.160 full reproductive rights. Claire, what is the punishment for doctors who violate the ban?

00:14:18.420 Doctors who violate the ban might be imprisoned for up to five years and face fines of £10,000

00:14:24.500 or both. And I can just say that, you know, it's not the fine that would, I think, put doctors off,

00:14:32.400 But the fact that they're going to be imprisoned, if you're imprisoned, you will lose your license. You won't be able to work again as a doctor, certainly, of course, not for the five years you're put away, but you might lose your entire livelihood.

00:14:44.760 That's the difficult decision that these people are facing

00:14:47.800 and whether or not to do things.

00:14:49.500 And in fact, one of the justices who spoke,

00:14:53.140 Justice Daniel Crowthers, who wrote in the majority opinion

00:14:56.200 which supported overturning the ban,

00:14:59.260 but it lacked the number into force, says,

00:15:00.900 the vagueness in the law relates to when an abortion can be performed

00:15:04.460 to preserve the life and health of the mother.

00:15:07.380 After striking this invalid provision,

00:15:09.280 the remaining portions of the law would be inoperable.

00:15:11.960 So basically the justices themselves identify the vagueness in the law. Now here's the terrifying prospect. A doctor doesn't know when they can act within the law and do what they need to do or not act within the law and face the prospect of the jail and a fine.

00:15:35.020 Now, how are they going to act in those circumstances?

00:15:38.400 Will they just call canny and not perform an abortion in circumstances where otherwise they might

00:15:45.540 because they fear someone will report them or judge them or what?

00:15:49.520 At the moment in America, abortion is now banned in 13 states.

00:15:54.400 Four have banned the procedure past roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

00:15:58.160 And there are, I think, one, two, three, four, five different states that are in flux that haven't decided yet.

00:16:02.900 I mean you there might be some people listening to us that are saying to themselves well what has

00:16:07.460 this got to do with the witch trials in Scotland but I'm just going to remind anybody that's 0.96

00:16:11.640 thinking that this this is a feminist campaign because it's about women who are knuckled down 0.93

00:16:17.620 underneath the patriarchy and we need to understand that if we are getting our access to health care 0.99

00:16:23.540 stopped not even just tampered with but stopped then you better believe it's the patriarchy that's

00:16:29.580 doing that you know they want control over our fertility they want us kept in the shackles of 0.93

00:16:35.140 unwanted pregnancies because what's more important is a fetus than babies that are already born

00:16:43.140 they're not interested particularly in feeding babies or looking after babies and you can see

00:16:47.400 that story after story this is about control it's not really about the sanctity of life at all for 0.69

00:16:53.340 the majority it's about controlling women just like it was during the witch trials and what's

00:16:58.260 going to happen is abortion is not going to stop we all know that it's still going to happen but

00:17:02.840 it's going to become much more of a backstreet thing it's going to become much more dangerous

00:17:07.200 and we just can't have that happen so we need to get involved I don't know in the states I think

00:17:13.600 it's getting in touch with your senator it's getting in touch with your lawmakers when we

00:17:17.680 did an event in America during our recent tour we did an event in New Jersey where there was a

00:17:23.980 senator there and she said that everybody needs to know who their senator is how to contact them

00:17:29.360 and i'm going to say the same thing that claire and i say in talks that we give politicians work

00:17:34.340 for us you know if you sit back and you go well i'm not political lucky you you know what i mean

00:17:41.060 lucky you if you think i'm not political because to me that says i live a life of ease it just

00:17:46.220 hasn't happened to you yet it hasn't happened to somebody close to you in a multitude of ways

00:17:50.300 we all need to be political we all really care about what happened during the witch hunts

00:17:54.380 we need to be really switched on to what is happening with women and men now okay now there's

00:18:01.520 a very very good segue into something else that we want to flag up which hopefully we'll get this

00:18:07.600 podcast out in time Zoe so that people can get involved or follow um cases which is the 16 days

00:18:14.980 of activism which are currently going on yeah that's with the united nations isn't it and it's

00:18:20.820 about digital violence and it's saying that really the strapline here is that digital violence is

00:18:26.200 real violence that there's no excuse for online abuse any woman that's online knows that it's

00:18:32.140 very easy unless you stick to the most benign of subjects and even then for men to give you a hard

00:18:38.840 time whether it's that they're sending you unsolicited comments or pictures or if you put

00:18:44.200 your head above the parapet it's rape threats death threats it's absolutely appalling and we

00:18:50.880 need to be so clear on this that just because it's happening online doesn't mean it's not real

00:18:55.860 it is real and we need to be really careful with that we see all the time women getting called

00:19:00.720 witches online oh haha hilarious yeah great stuff guys let me know exactly inventive let me give you

00:19:07.780 some stats zoe um one in three women experience gender-based violence in their lifetime 16 to

00:19:15.100 58 percent of women and girls face digital violence 90 to 95 percent of deep fake videos

00:19:22.940 are sexual images of women i mean it those numbers are terrifying for the future quite frankly

00:19:31.700 it's quite scary when you look at how how broad it is as well and how little countries are really

00:19:38.440 up to date with what they need to do to protect their their citizens particularly their women

00:19:42.280 it says here that fewer this is on the un's website fewer than 40 percent of countries have

00:19:47.880 laws protecting women from cyber harassment or cyber stalking and this leaves 44 percent of the

00:19:53.180 world's women and girls which is 1.8 billion people without access to legal protection

00:19:59.520 and um the un has also provided actually some helpful tips about how we can try and take

00:20:06.320 action because you know zoe and i say quarrelsome dames we want people to get out there and get

00:20:12.040 their elbows out and start making waves and complaining about things so briefly um hold

00:20:17.140 perpetrators accountable through better laws and enforcement so if you've got any scope in that

00:20:21.700 regard, please do so. Make tech companies step up by hiring women and to focus on safer online

00:20:29.420 spaces. Support survivors with real resources, for example, funding women's rights organisations

00:20:36.320 and movements and investing in prevention and cultural change through digital literacy

00:20:41.560 and online safety training for women. It says that challenge toxic online cultures. It's time

00:20:49.480 to reclaim our digital spaces and demand a future where technology powers equality actually i think

00:20:55.540 something should be added to that and that is um teach men and young boys about the effects of

00:21:03.740 what they do i'm sure there are lots of people that sit online that a don't think about it at all

00:21:08.980 or b do think about it and go it's just a bit of banter online it's not it's just a banter yeah it

00:21:15.040 doesn't matter it's not real they're not face to face but it's very real when you get these citizen

00:21:20.040 detectives online who are largely women that then find everything there is to find out about these

00:21:24.900 men and then confront their workplaces or they confront their you know their families or whatever

00:21:29.900 you know i think it's all well and good having freedom of speech but you can't be free of

00:21:34.380 consequence from your freedom of speech so if you're going to say hateful things you know i

00:21:38.760 think there should be a consequence for it you should think before you type and one final stat

00:21:43.340 from this UN page here which is horrifying and ties back to the witch trials which is that a

00:21:49.300 woman is killed every 10 minutes it's the most pervasive human rights violation and there were

00:21:56.220 an estimated 50,000 women and girls killed by intimate partners or family members worldwide in

00:22:03.100 2024 137 women and girls every day right so one every 10 minutes and again I'm going to stress

00:22:10.980 this is intimate partners or family members not strangers not people that are arriving in your

00:22:17.500 country these are people that we're choosing to have in our lives they're either our partners

00:22:22.440 they're mum's partner they're an uncle they're a father or a grandfather they're people that we

00:22:29.360 know okay that's wrong one every 10 minutes is absolutely horrifying and i see the statistic

00:22:36.920 that really brings that home and i mean the word home is that um the most dangerous place for a

00:22:43.360 woman again this year is their own home it's horrifying isn't it right okay we're we're now

00:22:52.040 going to move on to the segment that we do each episode which is to remember those people that

00:22:57.240 were accused and were involved in the witch trials in scotland so i'm going to go back today because

00:23:03.220 we gave a talk in Musselburgh which is near Edinburgh just very recently at the weekend

00:23:08.460 there so I thought we would have a look at Musselburgh and I'm looking at one person in

00:23:12.680 particular and then the other people that were accused alongside them so our person that we're

00:23:17.460 remembering initially today is Janet Dale and this happened in 1661 she had her trial on the 29th of

00:23:26.100 July 1661 there's not much information other than the fact that she was found guilty and that she

00:23:32.200 was then executed um just really horrifying it said that she was executed on the 30th of july

00:23:39.740 so that is the day after her trial so she was found guilty and she was she was executed the

00:23:46.260 next day by being strangled and burned actually says that on the um the documentation and again

00:23:51.640 as usual this is on the database of scottish witches that the university of edinburgh have

00:23:56.880 done a tremendous resource the other people that were named alongside janet dale were

00:24:01.780 margaret bell agnes anderson margaret barber agnes johnston william king and elspeth

00:24:12.920 haliburton so that's a group of people in musselboro that were killed back in 1661 and

00:24:21.360 if you want to go and have a bit of a deep dive into their stories as much as you can you can go

00:24:26.220 and have a look at the website which is witches.hca.ed.ac.uk but if you google claire what's

00:24:34.860 the best thing to google university of edinburgh if you just google university of edinburgh

00:24:39.940 interactive witches map and as we've said before the map's amazing i was looking at it today to

00:24:45.840 get these names and you've got the map and they've got the icons of witches in different areas and

00:24:50.420 then you can enlarge and then it tells you more and then it clicks through so if you've got a

00:24:54.620 particular area that you're interested in scotland then go and have a look at that area but it's

00:24:59.160 organized in other ways too but i like the map function i think that's really useful so back to

00:25:04.880 the guests for today we've got two really interesting people that we're talking to today

00:25:10.980 we're going to be talking to professor john azuma from ghana who's going to be talking to us about

00:25:16.980 his work with the witch camps in northern ghana and we're also going to be talking to claire thomas

00:25:22.300 who is the most superb photojournalist who took incredibly they're beautiful but they're really 0.71

00:25:28.940 upsetting photographs because you just think about you can see that these are real women that

00:25:34.440 are living in the witch camps you can see their humanity and then once you know what the story is

00:25:39.540 it's just it's just so sad that these women are living in the witch camps but she'll explain more

00:25:44.700 about what that experience is so thank you so much for joining us today we will see you next time

00:25:50.600 Hello and welcome to the show, Professor John Azuma.

00:25:54.200 We are so happy that you made time to meet with us today.

00:25:57.640 Could you maybe tell our listeners why it is that we have asked you on as our special guest today, please?

00:26:04.560 Thank you, Zoe. Thank you, Claire. It's a pleasure to be here.

00:26:08.680 And thank you for having me.

00:26:09.960 And yeah, I'm here because I am leading a campaign in Ghana against witchcraft accusation for the past five years.

00:26:20.120 And we have put a coalition together to fight against this witchcraft accusation, which mainly affects elderly women and vulnerable people, mainly female.

00:26:33.380 And that's my role here as part of the work I do in Ghana here.

00:26:36.520 So much like in Scotland, historically, it's the same sort of group that seem to be the victims of things.

00:26:43.160 What is your background and what has led you to do this type of work?

00:26:47.080 thank you i come from northern ghana myself the northern part of the country

00:26:52.660 and i trained as a as a minister of the of the church the presbyterian church

00:26:58.840 and but i'm growing up from that background i it was witchcraft accusations and gossip about

00:27:07.780 witchcraft was all around me and my own mother was there was a lot of gossip in the family that

00:27:14.220 my mother was a witch. Because apparently, I was doing well in school, and people thought

00:27:20.120 my mother was stealing other people's intelligence from me. And looking back, I said, I wish

00:27:26.560 she could do that, but she couldn't do that. So fast forward, in 2020, there was a public

00:27:35.820 lynching of an elderly woman in her 90s for being accused of being a witch. And that

00:27:44.200 really touched a raw nerve in me and i i kind of started to mobilize and to campaign for this that's

00:27:52.560 how i i got involved in this campaign and we're really really grateful for the work that you do

00:27:59.680 that's that's amazing and we're so happy that you're able to use what what power you can to

00:28:06.780 help people the most vulnerable people in these circumstances sorry zoe no no not at all i was

00:28:12.000 going to say um what is it religious the the sort of the accusations of of being a witch is it coming

00:28:19.040 from people that would deem themselves to be religious or not it is it is rooted in religion

00:28:26.880 but you don't have to be a religious figure to make the accusation even though it normally would

00:28:33.640 end up in front of a religious figure who makes the declaration but ordinary people can make the

00:28:40.500 based on dreams that they've had, or some sick people, patients can make a declaration that

00:28:47.820 my sickness is being caused by so-so-and-so in the family. Sometimes people are pressured to

00:28:54.220 make those kinds of declarations and accusations. And then when it escalates, they drag each other

00:29:02.180 before a traditional priest or religious leader who has a ritual that they perform

00:29:08.760 to declare who is a witch and who is not a witch.

00:29:12.420 And that is how the accusations go. 0.91

00:29:14.240 So it's normally from a sick person

00:29:15.720 or somebody dies in their family suddenly

00:29:18.140 or some mishap happens

00:29:20.760 or somebody is just going through tough times in life

00:29:23.760 and they have to find the cause of this

00:29:27.460 and it normally ends up being a family member

00:29:29.880 who is the cause of bewitching the person, the victim.

00:29:33.400 So somebody from their own family,

00:29:35.440 so not necessarily somebody else always in the community,

00:29:38.200 but somebody that's actually very close to them, maybe.

00:29:41.260 Yeah, that is what is so insidious about this belief here,

00:29:44.520 that the vast majority, over 90% of the accusations

00:29:49.760 come from close family members.

00:29:51.820 Wow.

00:29:52.540 Come from within the family.

00:29:53.880 Sometimes, sadly, it comes from even biological children

00:29:59.400 who will accuse their own mothers of being the witches,

00:30:03.380 of being witches.

00:30:04.580 And John...

00:30:05.580 Yeah.

00:30:06.080 Oh, sorry. And John, what is the outcome? So it's interesting to hear that when there's a witchcraft accusation, they're brought before a religious person, rather than being a courtroom accusation of witchcraft.

00:30:20.220 If someone finds out that they are a witch or they've committed an act of witchcraft, and we'll maybe talk about what being a witch is, what then happens to the person if they're deemed to have done witchcraft?

00:30:32.760 Thank you. Several things could happen to the person. Sometimes the person is just mob justice. The moment you are accused, nobody comes to your aid. And so the village, the whole village can rally around and either beat you to pop. If you are lucky, there are some figures around who can save your life.

00:30:55.920 they will intervene and save you and when that is done you will be taken to the local chief

00:31:01.720 but the local chief interestingly doesn't sit on witchcraft accusation they will refer you

00:31:08.740 to a traditional priest and there are priests or religious figures who handle this and so

00:31:15.060 they will refer you there and as i said a ritual is performed one classic example of a ritual

00:31:21.000 is a chicken will be slaughtered and when the chicken is slaughtered and thrown on the ground

00:31:27.360 the chicken will flap and flap and if the chicken ends up on its stomach you are a witch

00:31:34.220 if the chicken ends up on its back you are innocent but even after that in northern

00:31:42.820 when in many cases where the person is declared not to be a witch the community will still say

00:31:48.620 we don't trust the ritual we still believe the person's a witch and then is the annotation step

00:31:54.520 sorry no well the same thing really so so if the accusation sticks are they then banished from

00:32:00.940 their community exactly so that way uh they banish them and and for the safety of the person involved

00:32:08.400 if they go back to the community they could be killed uh sometimes brutally openly sometimes

00:32:14.300 through poison and other means.

00:32:18.140 And so they end up staying in these shrines

00:32:23.760 where the ritual to declare whether the person is weak or not

00:32:26.940 is performed.

00:32:28.340 And so you have these shrines that have grown

00:32:31.420 to become areas, settlements or camps

00:32:36.040 of accused persons who are living there

00:32:39.200 because they have been banished from their communities

00:32:40.920 and their families.

00:32:41.640 and these are the so-called witch camps and these are the so-called witch camps so we've got um

00:32:48.540 we've obviously spoken to somebody that you know who who put us in touch with you which is the

00:32:53.240 photographer Claire Thomas and the second half of this podcast episode will be our interview with

00:32:58.100 Claire where she um went to the witch camps and she took photographs and they're they're very

00:33:03.800 they're fantastic photographs but they're they're very upsetting because you think about the idea of

00:33:09.240 elders in the family who should be you know revered and respected and looked after

00:33:14.400 have been thrown out and live in the most basic of circumstances don't they yes yes and and in the 0.85

00:33:22.480 camps life there is very very uh deplorable beyond deplorable and these people they have to fend for

00:33:33.020 themselves, they go to the market, they gather the fallen grain that has, after the market is over,

00:33:40.200 they go and sweep the grain with the sun and they get back home and they separate the grain from the

00:33:45.120 sun. And that's how they fend for themselves. In fact, there is a documentary that a French

00:33:51.340 journalist came recently and did for France 24. And it shows the women gathering the grain from

00:34:00.320 the market, because nobody cares for them. Some of these women are responsible people who were 0.79

00:34:06.400 well capable of taking care of themselves and their families back in their communities. And

00:34:12.020 when they end up in these witch camps, they live on these kinds of things, and they live on charity, 0.69

00:34:18.240 NGOs, church groups, individual philanthropists go by and give some gifts. And even these gifts, 0.73

00:34:26.700 this relief support in most cases doesn't get to the victims uh the the managers of the camp will 1.00

00:34:33.540 take 90 95 percent of it sometimes all of it and so these women are doubly exploited not to talk

00:34:41.380 of the fact that they are sexually exploited and raped uh their grandchildren come to stay with

00:34:47.420 them and child rape takes place very regularly there so it's a terrible condition in the in the

00:34:53.000 winter which comes and what what work are you um able to do at the moment about this is it a case

00:34:59.440 of education that that you're working on we are doing a lot of education just uh three weeks ago

00:35:07.320 we did the the five years anniversary of this public lynching of the older lady as mentioned

00:35:13.500 earlier and we brought schools uh especially young girls from high schools we brought women groups

00:35:21.380 into a very large space and we had the minister of state in charge of gender and women affairs

00:35:27.300 and she was present and we did a lot of education on these topics so i go to seminaries i go to

00:35:34.980 university campuses we met with we meet with religious leaders and we conduct education for

00:35:43.300 different groups of society so we do a lot of education but we also do a lot of work to

00:35:48.660 integrate these victims back in society, in their communities where it is safe. But the third leg

00:35:55.820 of what we are doing is campaigning for a legislation to be passed to criminalise the

00:36:00.980 accusation that will hopefully over time put an end to this practice. Sorry Claire, you asked the

00:36:09.180 legal question. No, no. So that's interesting that you would be trying to bring into legislation

00:36:15.660 so that the person that would be the criminal

00:36:18.040 and would suffer a fine or something like that

00:36:21.540 would be the person who made the accusation.

00:36:24.820 Exactly.

00:36:26.180 So that would hopefully protect more people

00:36:29.260 because people will think twice about making an accusation.

00:36:32.620 Exactly.

00:36:33.640 So in this case, it's not targeted at the accused witches,

00:36:37.060 so-called witches.

00:36:38.300 It is targeted at those who make the accusations.

00:36:41.400 Yes.

00:36:41.760 So what I'm thinking, though,

00:36:44.880 is would there because because it's a belief system that is very strongly and widely held

00:36:53.540 in the legislation do you see anybody suggesting that there ought to be a defense for it and the

00:36:59.660 defense would be what we would call in scotland veritas the truth so so if if you said i've called

00:37:08.300 someone a witch and you're being prosecuted for it would they then say but i want to prove she

00:37:13.820 as a witch, i.e. could they become new witch trials as a way of defending the person against

00:37:21.860 an allegation? I'm just wondering how that can be guarded against.

00:37:27.660 That is a very real possibility, but we've had, I think I've heard of two scenarios where

00:37:37.120 people were asked to defend this in court and in a legal kind of setup and they could not because

00:37:48.840 it has to be empirical, it has to be verifiable for it to be entertained in a law court. And so

00:37:55.640 that is where people think that even if that comes up, it's not going to be successful.

00:38:01.940 good right okay and why do you think that it's such a popular idea then is it is it popular

00:38:10.180 throughout ghana or is it mostly northern ghana it is popular throughout ghana and i would say

00:38:16.740 throughout africa sub-saharan africa in fact africa as a whole but in northern ghana what

00:38:23.620 distinguishes northern ghana from the rest of ghana and i would say even from the rest of the

00:38:28.340 world is this which comes this alleged which comes in in the rest of ghana there's a lot of

00:38:34.740 accusations and older women are ostracized within their families they live in isolation they they

00:38:43.160 don't get to see or interact with their grandchildren and even their children sometimes 1.00

00:38:48.740 so that that isolation happens within families yeah but they don't send them to which come

00:38:55.680 The northern Ghana is where the camps exist.

00:38:59.420 But it's a deeply held belief. 1.00

00:39:02.460 Police officers believe in it.

00:39:04.400 Judges, some judges believe in it.

00:39:06.760 Some doctors believe in it.

00:39:08.800 Professors believe in it.

00:39:10.840 Not to talk of chiefs.

00:39:12.400 It is a very widely held belief.

00:39:15.660 Oh, sorry.

00:39:17.800 We stress to people who in the modern day,

00:39:24.220 in in the uk or in scotland where we've predominantly done our stuff that they were 0.99

00:39:31.000 like oh that could never happen again this is ignorance this is stupidity and we're saying 1.00

00:39:35.500 it's not ignorance and stupidity it's it's a belief system and unless and until people 1.00

00:39:41.960 are are educated to believe something else or just believe something else like faith 0.97

00:39:47.780 it's just another system of belief so people can be hugely educated very very wise but if they

00:39:55.120 believe in witches that's that's a belief the same way as people believe in god or don't believe in

00:40:01.940 god exactly and you know claire the point is this like it is with every belief system

00:40:09.220 the belief system sometimes will run itself to the ground with when the abuses start and

00:40:16.700 it becomes excessive and people begin

00:40:18.860 to see through it and begin to

00:40:20.640 question it 0.70

00:40:21.500 why is it only elderly women

00:40:24.340 why is it only the vulnerable

00:40:26.660 why is it only poor people

00:40:29.000 and

00:40:30.200 somebody

00:40:32.340 husband dies and someone

00:40:35.020 comes to them and says I want to marry you as a

00:40:37.060 widow and the person says no

00:40:38.800 I'm not interested in marriage at this age of my

00:40:40.900 life and then within

00:40:42.900 a week the person is accused by that

00:40:44.960 person of being a witch it becomes cynical and so sometimes when people begin to see through these

00:40:51.020 things then it it runs itself to the ground and why is it women and particularly older women

00:40:58.320 that are accused what's the rationale behind that extremely good question Zoe the the reason behind

00:41:06.320 that is simple is that uh in african belief witchcraft itself by by itself is not an evil

00:41:15.680 concept it's not a bad thing witchcraft is good it's a good source of power

00:41:23.360 that that can be exploited for good and the belief is that men generally use

00:41:31.040 witchcraft for to protect their families and to provide for their families 0.75

00:41:36.320 whereas women tend to use it to cause harm right so when i talk to people i tell them 1.00

00:41:46.080 for reading just this it tells me that the evil is not in the witchcraft itself it's in the woman 0.94

00:41:54.720 so it is womanhood that is demonized here and not witchcraft so it is just by it's like what

00:42:04.480 happened in europe centuries ago as you as your work shows that women were accused because the

00:42:12.240 way you look i i when i'm teaching i make a joke i said in ghana when a woman is extremely 0.66

00:42:18.880 intelligent she's a witch if she is not intelligent she's a witch if her children are doing well in 0.91

00:42:25.680 school she's a witch if the children are doing well in school she must be a witch so the woman 0.97

00:42:32.160 never wins exactly it is a womanhood that is demonized not not not the belief system so we

00:42:38.360 haven't moved on that much i find it hard to understand how it hasn't moved on it hasn't

00:42:43.400 moved on in an age of smartphones that and people are so globally connected to each other and i've

00:42:49.860 not been to ghana but i'm presuming that in ghana lots of people are using the internet as well

00:42:54.240 um that that it still persists i mean i'm i'm a teacher i'm a high school teacher and we've got

00:43:00.540 quite a good sized Nigerian community in the city in which I live and they come a lot of people come

00:43:06.640 across to study at Dundee University so I teach some some girls who are Nigerian girls and they're

00:43:12.440 very modern they're on their phones you know like they're clever clever girls very sophisticated

00:43:17.680 and I had this conversation with them where I said to them oh I do this work about witches

00:43:21.840 and they all kind of went and I said what and they were like oh witches I mean there are witches and

00:43:27.300 i was like girls what and they were like yeah well if you see a woman with a cat you know and

00:43:33.320 if you if you see this and that happens and i said to them are you are you serious do you really and

00:43:37.860 these these girls are catholics i said do you do you really believe in that and they were like yeah

00:43:42.560 and i was really trying to puzzle out how their religious faith can sit alongside their modern

00:43:49.060 lives and this belief

00:43:51.300 is really fascinating

00:43:52.960 to me. Zoe, that

00:43:54.960 is a very

00:43:56.660 good observation that

00:43:58.440 religion is still

00:44:01.100 very powerful in African

00:44:02.820 societies. There is still

00:44:05.040 a huge 0.67

00:44:06.400 number of Africans

00:44:09.240 who hold

00:44:10.280 very dear to religion.

00:44:13.220 This woman that I mentioned

00:44:14.780 that she was lynched

00:44:16.740 in 2020

00:44:19.060 How did the rest of the country

00:44:22.200 get to know about it?

00:44:24.580 It was filmed with mobile phones.

00:44:27.360 Of course.

00:44:28.960 And put on social media.

00:44:31.760 And when I speak about it,

00:44:33.440 I tell people that what scared me

00:44:35.780 most watching that scene

00:44:37.500 is not only the horror

00:44:39.920 in the beating and the bludgeoning

00:44:42.080 of this poor, defenseless, older woman 0.97

00:44:44.940 sitting on the ground and beating to death.

00:44:47.800 That was horrible enough, but what horrified me most was this crowd of people surrounding with mobile phones.

00:44:58.780 Literally, everyone had a mobile phone, filming and sharing with religious slogans.

00:45:06.480 So, people are able to compartmentalize this, that you and I just can't imagine how that works.

00:45:13.100 But it is what happened here even in 2020, as recently as 2020.

00:45:18.860 It's wild to me. It's wild.

00:45:21.340 And did the concept of witches always exist in African society,

00:45:28.860 in different countries, in different parts?

00:45:30.840 Or is it the idea of a witch, something that was brought across by colonizers

00:45:35.240 who then brought their religion and their laws?

00:45:37.580 no i i think the concept of witchcraft is very much and it is indigenous to african societies

00:45:48.220 it goes way back before long before colonizers stepped foot on the continent it was part of the

00:45:54.940 belief systems of african societies except to say that it has evolved and the way that

00:46:05.500 alleged witches are treated has evolved uh in the olden days this was done hush hush they had they

00:46:16.380 had a spiritual or ritualistic ways of handling it they they they had ways of calling what they

00:46:24.060 call exorcism uh or performance sacrifices to take care of whatever the the the spirit was

00:46:32.220 but there was hardly any physical violence director was any accused person in in in olden days but

00:46:42.140 this has become a new phenomenon with economic pressures and all the the the the the the the

00:46:50.460 pressures of life mountain on societies people are looking for scapegoats and and when you find the

00:46:59.100 scapegoat it is almost about almost about instant justice so that is what is new as i said my mother's

00:47:06.780 case there was rumors there were rumors in the family but nobody openly accused that to have faith

00:47:14.460 and my dad made sure it never happened because he was like nobody would he would not allow anyone to

00:47:22.220 break up the family on those accusations he knew we don't know what my dad was doing in the background

00:47:28.060 but but it was never an issue in the family openly so protect your to protect yourself as a

00:47:35.120 woman if there is gossip you would really need a male protector to kind of stand strong in the

00:47:41.040 community and say not my wife which is not my wife or not my mother not my auntie not my sister

00:47:48.000 the women in the camps are generally women who don't have any such any male strong male child

00:47:55.880 are relative yeah that's that's what happened here and it's it's this it's the story exactly

00:48:02.760 of what happened in scotland which is that people went through periods of poverty there was terrible

00:48:08.000 illness or the crops failed or you know there'd been war or whatever people we look for stories

00:48:14.980 don't we as humans to say right that was it was because of this this happened that's why this

00:48:20.620 misfortune happened to me if i deal with the person that made that happen then my life will

00:48:25.300 turn around and we'll be better but it's it was drought it was drought that caused the lynching

00:48:30.560 of the woman in the north right oh gosh in 2020 that's just the same as whether witches fight

00:48:36.860 but we're seeing the same thing now in in britain um and it's not that there's accusations of

00:48:43.320 witchcraft but unto our absolute decent good thinking people in britain there's now um because

00:48:49.660 there's there's fear about you know the cost of living and about people being able to have jobs

00:48:54.600 and homes and blah blah blah instead of blaming the politicians and instead of blaming the rich

00:48:59.020 people oh yeah the focus has turned to immigrants and asylum seekers and really anybody that's not

00:49:04.120 white i mean it's it's just i tell my people here that the real witches are the politicians

00:49:09.980 agreed i'm gonna make a t-shirt saying that yeah i will come get one

00:49:18.140 although we have to be careful because our um our last first minister um nicola sturgeon 1.00

00:49:25.900 she is obviously a woman and when she was in power she constantly got called a witch but she also

00:49:32.840 so she was also the witch finder in some some people's minds as well and we at the time were

00:49:39.720 kind of like well which is she is she a witch or she in charge of finding witches it's just like 0.97

00:49:44.620 ridiculous but again it's sexism it's you know it's sexism it's women yeah women so it's women 0.94

00:49:52.080 what are you hopeful to achieve then so this the change in the law hopefully is that looking 0.96

00:49:57.020 positive yes now it's looking much more positive than it we actually successfully got the law

00:50:05.260 the bill to be passed in parliament in 2023 fabulous but the president at the time refused

00:50:12.080 to sign it into law yeah we just couldn't figure out why or despite all the pressure he refused

00:50:21.600 and as i said earlier we believe there are powerful class of people behind his refusal

00:50:28.240 who felt that it was going too far to infringe on people's belief systems so but the current

00:50:35.920 government has taken the bill up the last one was a private sponsor member's bill that we sponsored

00:50:41.940 it now the current government said they are taking it up as a government-sponsored bill

00:50:46.600 okay they will pass the bill and the current president said he will sign it into law so it

00:50:52.180 is going through the process again now in the house of parliament because if you were looking

00:50:56.300 at it cynically in political terms it's quite a useful thing to have happening out in communities

00:51:02.120 isn't it because oh yeah there's there's a fear there that can help you to keep your power if

00:51:07.800 you're not very confident with your power exactly that's a that's a tool that you can use to make

00:51:13.560 to shore up your own power it's a very convenient tool very convenient tool yeah yeah and we know

00:51:21.140 that claire thomas is doing a go fund me which we'll talk about in the other half of the of the 0.70

00:51:26.320 show today but she's doing a gofundme to get mattresses for um the women in the in the witch

00:51:32.620 camp so that's one way in which our listeners can get involved is there another way in which

00:51:36.900 they can be helpful to your case in ghana yeah i think i think some of these conferences are

00:51:43.740 very helpful we just want people like you to amplify our voices and take the campaign to the

00:51:49.620 next level globally and make it make people aware of this existence of these camps and why

00:51:56.840 these camps need to be disbanded for these women to be returned to their communities in safety

00:52:02.840 that's what one we would want to help the women with mattresses with with food with everything 0.99

00:52:09.100 that we can but that is not our principal ultimate aim our ultimate aim is to get these women out of 0.99

00:52:17.180 these camps and back into the communities 0.78

00:52:19.040 and we would appreciate your help

00:52:21.100 in that regard.

00:52:22.040 And for there not to be cases of women being sent

00:52:25.160 to the camps in the first place.

00:52:27.020 Exactly. If the law comes into

00:52:29.120 place, that will help enormously

00:52:31.360 with that.

00:52:32.320 Yeah.

00:52:34.400 Well, we absolutely wish you all the best with that,

00:52:37.160 John, and we hope that you'll

00:52:39.080 keep us updated as to how

00:52:41.060 things go.

00:52:42.880 Absolutely. Thank you so much, Claire.

00:52:44.780 Thank you, Zoe.

00:52:45.720 hello we are delighted today to have a guest who's going to be talking about us and talking

00:52:51.980 to us about something very pertinent and very contemporary which is a little bit unusual for us

00:52:57.080 so I'd like to welcome well we'd like to welcome Claire to the podcast hello Claire hello thank you

00:53:03.520 so much for having me so Claire can you tell our listeners why it is that we have asked you to come

00:53:08.800 on today please. Sure so I am a photojournalist originally from Wales and I recently visited

00:53:17.860 northern Ghana to do to document a story about women who have been accused of witchcraft

00:53:27.300 and these women are then banished to one of six camps where they live in in very

00:53:36.120 bleak conditions for some for the rest of their lives one woman I met has been in one of these

00:53:41.860 camps for 45 years yeah it's very it's a very sad situation I first went to one of these camps in

00:53:49.700 2009 the first time I went to Ghana I was volunteering with a community-based organization

00:53:55.500 in a different part of the country and I think I must have read about these camps in a lonely

00:54:01.120 planet or something or I heard about them and so I went I went to visit just as a tourist I wasn't

00:54:07.540 working in journalism at the time and it you know it sort of shocked me that these things exist that

00:54:15.420 accusations of witchcraft are actually still happening today anyway so I wanted to find out

00:54:22.060 more I returned to the camp in 2012 and and finally I went back in May to visit a few more

00:54:30.140 of the camps. And this time I had a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center to support my

00:54:36.780 project, documenting with photographs and interviews. And I spent a lot of time with

00:54:42.880 these women and their testimonies were really, really harrowing. So in addition to my journalism

00:54:48.400 work, I wanted to try and do something small to help, you know, whatever I could. And one of the

00:54:55.880 things that i noticed none of the women have is is a bed to sleep on they don't have a mattress i 0.99

00:55:01.480 mean they don't have much at all and and you know for many people this is the case in ghana that

00:55:06.620 there is a you know a high degree of poverty unfortunately but in these camps these women

00:55:12.780 are elderly some of them have very bad health conditions and nobody is really there to care

00:55:20.600 for them they've been exiled from their families so and you know the there are different people

00:55:28.140 trying to support them members of the church NGOs volunteers so you know it's not just me of course

00:55:36.080 and in one of the camps the women did have mattresses so anyway so I set up a fundraising

00:55:41.580 campaign to try and at least provide the women in one of the camps with the mattress each and 0.70

00:55:47.880 then some other things like they can actually do some small small scale businesses in inside the 0.98

00:55:54.040 camps uh so they make soap they make jewelry but they don't have the money to get established you

00:56:00.460 know to set themselves up with the stuff the products they need to to make these things so

00:56:05.160 i want to try and help and i'll go back then next year hopefully with the with if i reach the target

00:56:10.360 and then i'll go personally to buy the beds and then coordinate with the camp management and

00:56:15.660 everything and document the whole thing that's amazing and can you tell us a little bit about 0.89

00:56:21.020 why um some of the women have been sent there what what had they done to get themselves labeled as

00:56:26.440 being witches so there's a number of things of course it's being weaponized these accusations

00:56:32.420 are being weaponized by well there are two tracks for some people you know it's a deep-rooted belief

00:56:39.180 they genuinely believe that these women can be witches i mean it's widespread in ghana every

00:56:44.820 almost everybody believes in witchcraft but to give you an example one woman I met her name was

00:56:50.080 Matisse and she had arrived in the camp just a month before and she wasn't very old she's they 0.89

00:56:56.780 don't know their age most of these women are uneducated and anyway so I'd say she's in her 1.00

00:57:04.980 30s or 40s and she I asked her why she was there and she said one day a man in the community 0.59

00:57:09.800 um accused of a witch because he'd had a dream where he was being chased by a cow and the face

00:57:17.080 of the cow was the woman was matisse's face and that was enough so he then said that woman's a

00:57:23.600 witch and so in this case what usually then happens of course if you're from an educated

00:57:29.640 family they will say this is nonsense leave my mother alone or whatever you know go away but

00:57:34.980 these it's vulnerable women who are targeted generally so usually then the local priest

00:57:42.220 spiritual priest will conduct a um like a ritual to determine guilt you know whether or not she's

00:57:49.040 actually a witch and what they do then is they'll get a guinea fowl they chop the head off and if 0.98

00:57:54.280 the guinea fowl falls one way she's a witch and if it falls the other way she's not however the

00:57:59.800 community have already decided once there is an accusation that's it they don't care about the

00:58:04.300 ceremony she if if you as soon as you say this woman is a witch basically that's the end um so

00:58:10.900 they they then have to flee very quickly and this month actually exactly five years ago from right

00:58:19.200 now um a 90 year old woman called akua dente if i remember the name correctly she was 90 she was

00:58:26.960 accused of witchcraft and she was publicly lynched she was beaten to death they they live streamed

00:58:33.760 You know, it was posted all over social media. And from that point on, it really galvanized support for this anti-witchcraft bill, which was introduced to Parliament in 2023, July 2023, I believe, passed to outlaw these accusations and give the women some protection.

00:58:54.620 but the president didn't sign it he never signed it into law unfortunately now it's a new

00:58:59.920 administration and it's going back into parliament it's been reintroduced and it should be debated

00:59:06.060 any day in parliament and the new president has promised to sign it so there's some there's some

00:59:11.940 hope right now i think this is the only way that the situation will approve will improve is with

00:59:18.860 legislation to prosecute people who accuse women of witchcraft of course like you said men are

00:59:25.220 accused too but can I just check the the camps that they go to just to be clear these aren't

00:59:32.480 themselves inverted commas punishment of course they are punishment you're banished from your

00:59:37.240 community but the camps are actually somewhere set up so that women accused of witchcraft these

00:59:42.640 particular ones are safe from the community exactly so they're like you some people call

00:59:49.060 them a refuge however and when so when I went in this time in one of the camps it almost seemed

00:59:57.680 quite joyful these women are so strong so resilient they're wearing brightly bright

01:00:03.820 colored clothes they they danced they sang when I arrived um so I thought okay you know it's it's a

01:00:09.880 very difficult situation they they don't have freedom they can't go home they can't see their

01:00:14.500 families but maybe at least they're safe however I you know did more research and conducted more

01:00:21.700 interviews especially with a professor of the this research institute in Accra who's been working

01:00:27.620 tirelessly to push the anti-witchcraft bill his name is Professor John Azuma so he told me a lot

01:00:34.200 more about what goes on and unfortunately of course I didn't see this myself but I suspected

01:00:39.520 but the chiefs who are tasked with protecting the women within these camps there are reports of

01:00:47.080 sexual abuse exploitation i knew what you were going to say even before you tell us all this

01:00:52.340 time isn't it you gather the group of women supposedly for uh for safety but and then use

01:00:56.940 them to your own ends it's the patriarchy just yeah exactly yeah yeah he's just like an interesting

01:01:03.400 person for us to follow up with and talk to as well actually oh he's been amazing you would have

01:01:08.240 conversation with john his own mother was was accused wow and he said luckily you know his

01:01:16.360 father's educated and so they didn't pay any attention to it but of course there was still

01:01:20.860 some societal stigma um but it you know she's she wasn't exiled she wasn't banished of course

01:01:28.700 and so did the chiefs that are that are looking after the camps do they provide food you know

01:01:34.020 how do they how do they survive these women yeah uh sometimes I I met some very nice chiefs too

01:01:40.680 you know I guess I should say that but of course I you know I don't live there so I don't see what 0.99

01:01:45.660 goes on uh but one chief in particular I could I could tell I mean one chief he was talking uh I

01:01:51.700 was asking him like yeah what what uh he was telling me about I think a Danish woman who had

01:01:56.600 been bringing some items for the women and as he was telling me this through the translator

01:02:02.240 the women were sitting behind him like making gestures like I didn't know what they were

01:02:07.740 what they were saying I asked them later and they were saying that he's lying of course when

01:02:12.120 these things come he takes them yeah she was saying if you want to bring us anything you

01:02:17.080 have to give it to us directly not through the chief yeah that's the case with other camps so

01:02:22.520 in terms of food I I think perhaps the chief provides some but generally what I saw was that

01:02:29.120 the women will they do some small tasks for farmers carry firewood and then they'll be given

01:02:36.820 some food in return or they crack ground nuts and then their their payment is that they can eat as 0.96

01:02:42.660 many as they want you know they they remove the shell and so some of them had like very deformed

01:02:48.100 hands just they sit there all day for hours just cracking the shells and putting the you know the

01:02:54.160 ground that's in a bag and then they give that to the farmer and they can keep some um i know

01:02:59.380 there are some organizations that provide some support um action aid is there but it's very

01:03:05.820 limited and it's and the church the presbyterian church in one in gambaga camp which is the camp

01:03:12.000 where i'm i'm hoping to provide the beds for the women they she told me that they they do provide

01:03:18.680 them with um a small amount of food basic staple food each month are there are there churches there

01:03:27.340 that are promoting the idea of witchcraft in the community um i wouldn't say there are churches i

01:03:35.020 would say that there are individuals okay yeah generally speaking the church is from from what

01:03:42.700 i saw the church is really trying to reintegrate the women so and they do have some success with

01:03:50.440 this so they but so the women yeah sorry i didn't actually explain there are other instances where

01:03:55.520 if there's an elderly woman in the family and there's a death if a child dies of malaria or

01:04:02.240 something like that the whichever women woman is nearest will be accused of causing that death

01:04:08.240 So it could be, it could be death, it could be illness, it could be a failed harvest, or just misfortune. The professor was telling me that, for example, if there is a child in school, that's doing really well, like he was doing really well. And because of that, the women of the other kids said his mother must be a witch because he's doing better than our kids.

01:04:29.360 so this kind of thing so if there if it's a situation like that then members of the church 0.52

01:04:35.680 all these mgo's they can go back to the families or to the community and try and convince them that

01:04:41.420 you know the woman woman isn't dangerous and they can't i don't suppose they necessarily say she's 0.96

01:04:48.440 not a witch because they really believe that she's a witch but they will convince them that

01:04:52.620 the priest can perform a cleansing ritual and she could be released because of course these camps

01:04:59.020 have no walls these are not fenced in camps they can leave you know they're some of them are like

01:05:04.220 integrated in the community there are children passing through selling things so of course you

01:05:08.540 see the women could leave if they want but there are psychological barriers apparently that's

01:05:13.440 interesting as well that these women are feared enough to have been banished yeah the community

01:05:18.260 is still passing through and that they're allowing their children to pass through so they can't you

01:05:23.100 know that's weird it's like on the one hand oh they're so scary they must be removed and then

01:05:26.760 on the other hand but we'll let our children play there or move there you know it seems really odd

01:05:31.740 to me I think they believe that whilst they're in the camp they can't use their powers right

01:05:37.860 something an eye on them stops them from being magical that's that's wild and it tracks with

01:05:45.440 what happened in Scotland as well you know these kind of with some of the accusations being

01:05:49.440 sort of small community fallouts or difficulties or you know this idea that we keep coming back to

01:05:56.000 of people trying to find an explanation for misfortune of being you know aspects of being a

01:06:01.160 human you know that small things even you know like a small illness or you know like you're

01:06:06.320 saying about doing well in school that's really interesting to me yeah it it just the when you

01:06:13.240 were talking about the accusations there they are just exactly the same really yeah they really are

01:06:19.640 We know as well from a man that we met called Sustin Chiyothwa,

01:06:24.620 who's a professor.

01:06:26.080 He's an expert in climate change.

01:06:28.020 And what country is he from?

01:06:30.100 He is from Malawi.

01:06:31.400 So he said in Malawi that there's been an increase in accusations,

01:06:35.980 and it's to do actually with climate change.

01:06:38.460 You know, crops are failing or there's weather,

01:06:40.780 there's extreme weather, weather's changed,

01:06:42.720 and that people are saying, well, then this is down to witches,

01:06:45.780 which is exactly the weather witches story of, you know,

01:06:48.840 the times in the Scottish witch trials you know like this this weather's unusual this is too much

01:06:53.620 it's never I don't think it's ever in Scotland was like because it was nice weather

01:06:57.420 yeah yeah which would be much more unusual in actual fact exactly yes yeah well it's so

01:07:04.900 interesting talking to you Claire and I think that what's really interesting it's not it's not just

01:07:09.480 the story which is fascinating to hear from somebody that's been there and visited it and

01:07:12.180 actually firsthand has seen it and experienced it and spoken to these women but the photographs

01:07:16.280 that you've taken are amazing like they're such brilliant you're so incredibly talented

01:07:22.160 we were just having another look this morning when we were having our breakfast and just going

01:07:26.060 look at that that's just they're they're so great and also we'll put links up so that people can go

01:07:31.180 and obviously look at what you've what you've done with these women in in Ghana but your broader body

01:07:36.500 of work as well is just really tremendous so I think that our readers will definitely enjoy

01:07:41.380 at having a look at what you've done and we'll put the link up to the to the fundraiser yeah

01:07:46.260 so they go fund me um because i know that um a lot of our of our listeners are sometimes think

01:07:52.700 like well what what can i do you know like this is i feel the pain of these terrible things so

01:07:57.660 there's like an immediate thing that people can get involved with the fact that they don't even

01:08:01.160 have anything to sleep on so they're just sleeping on the ground on the ground i mean it the living

01:08:06.140 conditions are horrific they had have tiny huts most of them without of course no window no door

01:08:13.260 no fan it is impossible to sit inside them some of them you know we tried to it to do the interviews

01:08:19.940 inside their huts and it was it was impossible so you know yeah it's pretty bad they don't have

01:08:25.680 belongings they don't have anything and you know it's not temporary really no that's it well you're 0.97

01:08:30.860 saying that women living there for the rest of her life that's just horrendous and they don't 1.00

01:08:34.660 So they don't generally move back out again once they're there. 1.00

01:08:37.860 Is that them there for good?

01:08:39.740 So that they, some of them try, of course, they all want to leave.

01:08:43.000 They want to go home.

01:08:44.000 But in order for them to leave without being killed by the spirits,

01:08:48.280 which is what they believe, if they just exit on their own,

01:08:51.580 they believe that the spirits will kill them.

01:08:53.560 So in order to exit, the chief must perform an exorcism.

01:08:59.000 And in order to do that, there's a fee.

01:09:02.300 They have to pay an amount of money. 1.00

01:09:03.720 they also have to buy a ram and a guinea fowl and of course these women don't have a dime they 1.00

01:09:08.420 don't have a penny there's nothing they don't have any and where are they buying the ram and 1.00

01:09:12.600 the guinea fowl from like is it from the market anyway and then is it to go to the chief to go to

01:09:19.460 the chief to slaughter to sacrifice and then they're cleansed and then they're free from their

01:09:24.360 powers is what they believe uh but of course the community don't accept that generally so

01:09:29.740 typically the the the church and the NGOs will try to reintegrate them into a nearby community

01:09:37.300 to where where they're from and I did visit one woman who had returned she'd left she'd been in

01:09:41.920 the camp I think six years and that was joyful it was really special she was so happy she was

01:09:47.600 with her children her sister she'd she'd built a house in a in a neighboring community that

01:09:53.060 of course she hadn't done anything but um and her husband wouldn't move with her he stayed in the

01:09:59.920 original community and was just going to visit her as the chief the camp management told me for fun

01:10:06.940 when because she was still young so the husband would just go and visit her but yeah so they

01:10:12.180 it's hard for them to leave but some some do and there are increasing efforts to reintegrate them

01:10:18.460 into the community well we just want to thank you Claire so much first of all for your work

01:10:23.700 documenting this and bringing shining the light on it that you do telling the stories of these

01:10:30.080 women the photographs I myself am an amateur photographer the photographs are absolutely

01:10:35.500 incredible and I'm very jealous of your ability and and we really really look forward to the

01:10:43.580 amount that you you need to get raised being reached and we really hope that everyone listening

01:10:48.400 including ourselves yeah we'll make sure that that happens absolutely absolutely so we'll follow what

01:10:53.920 you're doing with interest yeah and please you know keep keep up with us let us know what's going

01:10:58.440 on and order for us to promote it put it out in our socials and stuff like that and we will do

01:11:03.420 that too yeah thank you so much thank you thanks for giving us the time today yeah we really

01:11:08.980 appreciate it thank you both well that was very interesting um hopefully we will have another

01:11:15.440 episode out in a couple of weeks but in the meantime claire what do people need to go and

01:11:20.380 have a look at well just in general in the world many many things but no specifically claire thanks

01:11:26.100 very much specifically um we it's absolutely amazing we have been um shortlisted for the

01:11:35.020 goodreads reader awards for history and biography so uh um our witches of scotland is like one of

01:11:43.980 the readers choice i think you've got 10 to choose from in history and biography and you know do you

01:11:49.500 know what i'm not i'm not going to help us here particularly but um some of those other books

01:11:54.880 look really interesting i know they are i'm just saying so i'll not be massively offended if we

01:12:00.140 don't win because there's some stuff in there that i was like that looks really really good i

01:12:03.980 mean they all look really interesting but there's some particularly in my interest area that you

01:12:09.260 have voted for us and not somebody else I did vote for us but if I'd had a second vote I would

01:12:13.640 have used it for somebody different so very competition is silly anyway but we we do need

01:12:20.000 to say to you please do vote for us because it would be it'd be really nice to win it because

01:12:24.340 it also means that more people will find out about the book basically which would be really cool

01:12:27.980 be really nice but it finishes on the 30th of yes so there's not long no quick turnaround but if um

01:12:37.360 if you're listening to this after the 30th of november and we didn't win well look how gracious

01:12:41.460 we are like how great listen so you've got to be able to feed the growing army of raccoons and

01:12:48.020 ravens listen i do i do i do even though we keep reading that raccoons are evolving to be domestic

01:12:55.980 animals i don't know if that's true or not one of one of the lovely people that's that's got some

01:13:00.860 tartan from us got in touch with the did you see this picture claire i don't know if you saw it

01:13:05.760 with them with the raccoons that she's been feeding i've forgotten the lady's name but i

01:13:10.860 can remember the raccoon's names and i think she'll forgive me entirely for that so she was

01:13:15.800 feeding a raccoon who was a i believe called queenie and she's now feeding queenie's daughter

01:13:21.140 Rebecca and her children who are nearly grown up and she feeds them every night and I just was like

01:13:26.260 can we be friends with the lady not necessarily the raccoons but just it's just so cute and we

01:13:32.080 don't have them here and I'm aware of the fact that the fact we don't have raccoons in Scotland

01:13:36.260 means I do not know what I'm talking about and I'm sure if you have raccoons they're not always

01:13:41.360 fantastic fun I know they do burglaries I know they can be rude okay I know that but I do love

01:13:47.740 them they're so sweet Zoe I think the people will be slightly surprised to find out that you don't

01:13:53.780 have any raccoons given the fact that you've been explaining to people that you have a raccoon army

01:13:58.860 that you've been training for some time Claire I'm trying to set up a sort of an alibi here to

01:14:03.500 cover myself you are the worst criminal defense lawyer for me I'm doing like a kind of a raccoon 0.98

01:14:10.240 cover story when we do the massive heist people go well it can't have been Zoe because she's just

01:14:16.340 said she doesn't have raccoons honestly god's sake Claire honestly anyway thank you so much

01:14:23.500 for listening I feel like there's something else that we needed to say too oh no there is with all

01:14:28.080 the things that we've done between just now and August but the fact is we just can't cover them

01:14:32.260 all Zoe yeah but there was something specifically that I wanted to say and now I can't remember

01:14:37.780 what it is ladies and gentlemen just just play music in this interlude they'll come back to me

01:14:45.140 as soon as i press stop recording whatever it is and it'll be time relevant and it'll be gone so

01:14:49.520 you'll all just have to guess what it is but i can guarantee at least at least 50 percent of this

01:14:53.980 audience knows what the feeling is i've got something so important to say i can't remember

01:14:58.180 what it is is it the fact that on saturday no but you can talk about that if you want to okay

01:15:04.420 on saturday which may be before now or after now depending where you're listening we are doing an

01:15:10.000 event at uh saint columbus church church in knightsbridge in london in london 5 p.m saturday

01:15:20.480 the 29th of november and it is um it is the saint andrew's book festival which is in london so it's

01:15:30.040 like scottish writers in london which is a really nice venture that they're doing also on the 11th

01:15:35.100 of december if you're in edinburgh we're going to be doing a christmas shopping night in waterstones

01:15:39.660 but we'll put information about that up on our socials but thank you so much for being here

01:15:44.560 thank you oh i remembered what it is it's come back to me it's to ask people if you've read the

01:15:50.960 book can you leave a review somewhere please can you on goodreads or on amazon or on waterstons

01:15:56.920 or wherever you bought it from please do leave a review um even if even if you don't like it that's

01:16:03.060 okay but just leave a review that would be great we'd really really appreciate it because i know

01:16:07.380 that there's a lot of people who have a look at review before they get a book and of course

01:16:11.580 remember libraries oh yes use your library too though you know if you don't you don't want to

01:16:18.140 buy a book then the libraries are marvelous and if they don't have a copy they'll order it in for

01:16:22.620 you support your local libraries okay all right is that it for tonight claire that's it for tonight

01:16:29.480 Zoe, thank you very much

01:16:30.660 keep it down 1.00

01:16:32.560 bloody raccoons, honestly 0.99

01:16:35.420 right, goodbye Zoe

01:16:38.320 if you'd like to know more about the Witches of Scotland

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Witches of Scotland - November 28, 2025

EPISODE 77 THE WITCHES OF GHANA

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Transcript