Baanyingnai is an elderly woman from Baambuli in the Northern Region of Ghana. She was accused of witchcraft and banished from her village by community members when her rival’s son, whom she raised from childhood, suddenly became sick and died in the hospital. Although the shrine that considered the case eventually vindicated her, she ran away and sought refuge in one of the witch camps in the Gushegu Municiplality for her own safety and security. She has been there for 10 years now.

How does Baanyingai’s story come to be told here in Lancaster? And why?

In July 2021, the UN Human Rights Council passed Resolution 47/8 on the Elimination of Harmful Practices related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks. The Resolution was the result of many years of collaboration by international partners, led by Ikponwosa Ero (former UN Independent Expert on Albinism), Gary Foxcroft (Director of the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network) and myself.

The global issue of human rights abuses linked to witchcraft belief was finally on the radar of the United Nations, but a Resolution changes little. What we need to achieve now is implementation of the Resolution, which means working with stakeholders including civil society, faith groups and religious leaders, academics and policy makers.

The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks was launched in 2022 to connect the different groups and initiatives working on this issue across the globe. In 2023, funded by the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account, the Network launched a campaign to highlight the importance of tackling witchcraft-related human rights abuses, and to inspire people to continue to work locally, nationally and internationally to tackle this issue.

We organised a conference at Lancaster University in September 2024, which brought together over fifty international stakeholders to focus on effective implementation. The conference was accompanied by the launch of a photographic exhibition, which aims to make visible the issues associated with accusations of witchcraft and associated harmful practices and highlights how individuals and communities are working to tackle these human rights abuses. One of the stories told in that exhibition is Baanyingnai’s. Her story will travel the world as the exhibition is hosted in Nigeria, Ghana, Australia, Papua New Guinea, the US and India over the coming year.

Implementation of the Resolution is only just beginning, but we can already see it having an impact.

In March 2023, the Pan-African Parliament released its Guidelines on Accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks: towards eliminating harmful practices and other human rights violations. In the same month, the UN issued a thematic report on the issue, which concludes that more comprehensive data gathering and further research are needed to develop a greater understanding of this complex problem, and recommending a number of actions including the development of comprehensive frameworks for prevention.

Governments have also responded. In 2022, the South African Law Commission undertook a review of the Witchcraft Suppression Act and in July 2023, Ghana’s MPs passed a bill criminalising witchcraft. In July 2023, the Child Rights Amendment Bill, which criminalises the branding of children as witches was signed into law in Cross River State, Nigeria. There have also been calls to pardon those historically accused of witchcraft in the UK, leveraging the Resolution.

To find out more about our work, you can view our film on the Resolution here.

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