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Modern witch hunts surpass the body counts of early-modern witch-hunting. [1] Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, and Nigeria, experiences a high prevalence of witch-hunting. In Cameroon, accusations have resurfaced in courts, often involving child-witchcraft scares.
The Witchcraft Suppression Act 3 of 1957 is an act of the Parliament of South Africa that prohibits various activities related to witchcraft, witch smelling or witch-hunting. It is based on the Witchcraft Suppression Act 1895 of the Cape Colony, which was in turn based on the Witchcraft Act 1735 of Great Britain. [1]
Witchcraft accusations against children in Africa have received increasing international attention in the first decade of the 21st century. [1] [2] [3]The phenomenon of witch-hunts in Sub-Saharan Africa is ancient, [4] but the problem has been exasperated due to charismatic preachers such as Helen Ukpabio. [4]
Despite the ongoing existence of the national Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957 [2] based on colonial witchcraft legislation, which criminalises the "pretence of witchcraft" and accusations of witchcraft, violent witch-hunts have persisted in rural areas of South Africa. Various legislative reforms have been proposed to try and address this ...
While some 19th–20th century European colonialists tried to stamp out witch-hunting in Africa by introducing laws banning accusations of witchcraft, some former African colonies introduced laws banning witchcraft after they gained independence. This has produced an environment that encourages persecution of suspected witches.
Ghana's parliament on Friday passed a bill to protect people accused of witchcraft, making it a crime to abuse them or send them away from communities. The new law was suggested after a 90-year ...
Witch-hunts increased again in the 17th century. The witch trials in Early Modern Europe included the Basque witch trials in Spain, the Fulda witch trials in Germany, the North Berwick witch trials in Scotland, and the Torsåker witch trials in Sweden. There were also witch-hunts during the 17th century in the American colonies.
Witch smellers (also known as omoriori) were important and powerful people, almost always women, amongst the Zulu and other Bantu-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, responsible for rooting out alleged evil witches in the area, and sometimes responsible for considerable bloodshed themselves.