John Azumah: Five-year sentence for calling someone a witch too lenient
Parliament last week passed a bill criminalising the declaration, accusation, naming or labelling of another person as a witch in the West African country
Professor John Azumah, the executive director of Sanneh Institute, Legon, has said the five-year jail term prescribed for offenders who will name, accuse or label another person as being a witch in Ghana, is too lenient.
Parliament last week passed a bill criminalising the declaration, accusation, naming or labelling of another person as a witch in the West African country.
The amendment, which was approved on Thursday, also prohibits any person from practicing as a witchdoctor or witchfinder.
A life sentence
“The sentencing is too lenient,” Azumah said on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Monday (31 July.) “One or five years is too lenient because if you look at someone who has been accused as a witch, it’s a life sentence and a death sentence.”
“A life sentence because when you accuse [someone as] a witch, the stigma remains with [her] for the rest of [her] life,” Azumah told the show host Benjamin Offei-Addo.
“It can be transferred to your children,” he noted, adding that since it is generational, “you can be ostracised, you can be attacked or be lynched.”
The bill is a response to incidents of public lynching of people, especially the elderly, accused of involvement in witchcraft. The Criminal Offences (Amendment) Bill 2022 was passed on Thursday and now awaits presidential assent to become law.
Over 500 of people are being held in safe houses, so-called witch camps, that are spread across the country where they fled for safety after being accused of involvement in witchcraft.
Some of the camps are thought to have been created over 100 years ago.
Azumah said although the punishment is too soft, it will still serve a purpose.
“If you compare the offence to the sentencing,” Azumah continued. “I still have quibbles that the sentencing is too lenient. But again, I think it is deterrent enough for us to work with and I am sure it will bring a lot of sanity into the system and gradually we will get rid of it.”
Listen to Prof John Azumah in the attached audio clip below:
Background
In 2020, 90-year-old Madam Akua Denteh was lynched in the Savanah Region after she was accused of being a witch.
Six people were later arrested, including the Kafaba chief, Zackaria Yahaya for their roles in the gruesome killing.
Many Ghanaians including President Akufo-Addo condemned the killing but few such incidents have occurred since then, prompting the passage of this bill.
In 2021, three Members of Parliament introduced the Private Members’ Bill to amend the Criminal and Other Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) to prohibit the practice by any person as a witch doctor or witchfinder.
The sponsors are MPs for Madina, Pusiga and Wa East constituencies, Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, Hajia Laadi Ayii Ayamba and Dr Godfred Seidu Jasaw respectively.
Reporting by Fred Dzakpata in Accra
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