Three Members of Parliament have filed a private member’s bill to criminalise witchcraft.
According to one of the three, Godfred Seidu Jasaw who is MP for Wa East, the objective of the Bill is the total prohibition of witchcraft practices in Ghana.
Mr. Jasaw noted that passage of the Bill will also result in the prohibition of professional witch doctors.
“We will achieve a number of objectives. one of them is that there will be a total prohibition of witchcraft practices in Ghana,” he said.
The Wa East Legislator explained that, “You have to also appreciate that we are getting a lot of stakeholder involvement and stakeholder interests, and for me that is the hope. The chiefs are okay with all the proposals and propositions we have made.”
He revealed that they visited the camp with some chiefs, who made input to the discussion.
Mr. Jasaw indicated that the Bill will be pushed through when the House resumes, “Indeed, just before the last session was over, the last meeting of Parliament was over, just last week, we tried to make sure that the Bill was laid, however, the business in Parliament in the last two weeks became so compounded that our Bill didn’t make space into the order paper.”
Violence against women in connection to witchcraft continues to rise in the Northeast region despite President Akuffo Addo’s intervention to end the menace.
President Akuffo Addo in February this year, sent a delegation to the region led by his special advisor on Gender and Development, Angela Asante.
The delegation was sent after a JoyNews report exposed how two women from the Mamprusi East community had been accused of witchcraft and subjected to severe torture by a Togolese priest.
However, authorities at the Gambaga witch camp say nothing has changed since the visit by the presidential delegation.