another day another news of the psychopathic religious
Ghana star student accused of witchcraft
Updated: 03:23, Thursday April 5, 2012
A 17-year-old high school student has been forced to drop out of her studies and seek refuge in a camp for women accused of witchcraft after fellow students said she was 'impossibly intelligent.'
According to local media reports, Ghana's women and children's minister, Hajia Hawawu Boya Gariba, intervened after the girl was accused by her classmates of 'stealing the brains of other students' in order to get top grades.
The student, who scored straight As, fled to Gambaga, a camp for witches in northern Ghana, after community members threatened violence.
She was released and will spend the Easter vacation with her family, after NGOs and civil servants explained to the community that the student was simply bright. Her case has attracted such media attention that on Wednesday an academy in the capital, Accra, said it was seeking funding to offer her a scholarship.
Gariba said it is important that 'such bizarre maltreatment of girls and children (is) eradicated' in Ghana.
Although the Ghanaian government says witchcraft does not exist, the country is home to about 16 formal camps where accused witches, who are usually female, can seek refuge.
Elsewhere in Africa, women are still jailed for suspected involvement in witchcraft. As recently as 2010, hundreds of women were still behind bars in Liberia, accused of casting spells.
In Malawi, 45 people were imprisoned for being witches in 2011, despite the presence of a 'witchcraft act' that was inherited from the UK 100 years' earlier and which denies the existence of the phenomenon.
http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=736444&vId=
Ghana star student accused of witchcraft
Updated: 03:23, Thursday April 5, 2012
A 17-year-old high school student has been forced to drop out of her studies and seek refuge in a camp for women accused of witchcraft after fellow students said she was 'impossibly intelligent.'
According to local media reports, Ghana's women and children's minister, Hajia Hawawu Boya Gariba, intervened after the girl was accused by her classmates of 'stealing the brains of other students' in order to get top grades.
The student, who scored straight As, fled to Gambaga, a camp for witches in northern Ghana, after community members threatened violence.
She was released and will spend the Easter vacation with her family, after NGOs and civil servants explained to the community that the student was simply bright. Her case has attracted such media attention that on Wednesday an academy in the capital, Accra, said it was seeking funding to offer her a scholarship.
Gariba said it is important that 'such bizarre maltreatment of girls and children (is) eradicated' in Ghana.
Although the Ghanaian government says witchcraft does not exist, the country is home to about 16 formal camps where accused witches, who are usually female, can seek refuge.
Elsewhere in Africa, women are still jailed for suspected involvement in witchcraft. As recently as 2010, hundreds of women were still behind bars in Liberia, accused of casting spells.
In Malawi, 45 people were imprisoned for being witches in 2011, despite the presence of a 'witchcraft act' that was inherited from the UK 100 years' earlier and which denies the existence of the phenomenon.
http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=736444&vId=
