It will not be easy to close down witch camps – Gender Minister

The Gender Minister, Cynthia Morrison says it will be a difficult task for her sector to close down the various witches camps in the northern part of Ghana.

The Minister explained that, contrary to previously held views, an entourage to Northern Ghana learnt that these witch camps rather served as a safe haven for the persons who have been accused of witchcraft.

She said until authorities went to the grounds to properly ascertain the problem, they thought the only solution was to close witch camps, but they realized was not that easy as they had projected.

“When we were moving, we were thinking that we will close down the witches camp since that is the only solution we had moving from Accra.

“But when we got there we realized that it was not as easy as sitting in Accra and thinking that you have to close down the camp,” 

Due to this the Gender Minister said the government has revised its approach in solving the problem in regards to the continuous lynching and harassment of women pronounced 'witches'.

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Ms Cynthia Morrison addressing the press at a briefing today [September 2] noted that among other things, the government is considering renovation of these the camps for the victims.

“Now, the only solution we have is a law and we have told them even before coming down that we are going to enact a law that will prevent people from lynching anybody.

“But the people themselves once they are branded witches, some of them voluntarily run to the shelter because they know that when they stay there, at night, the young men will come after them. 

“And so we went to almost every camp in the north and the only conclusion we have come to after even making the law is how to protect these innocent ones since a lot of them have refused to go home because of fear.

“So now what we are looking at is giving these wonderful elderly women  a safe haven and what we are going to do is to renovate where they are.”

The Gender Ministry, according to Mrs Morrison, will take steps to enroll the elderly people staying in the camps onto the  Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, if they have not already been registered.