How can the bloodbath of sorcerers be ended?
THOSE who may have missed me, and my regular Scarlett’s Letters over the past months may well have thought a sorcerer had done away with me, or caused me to disappear.
But the reality is that I’ve been working in South India, trying to stem the tide of migrants from the countryside to the cities. In the same way that HIV/AIDS is dislocating life in PNG, so is migration disrupting life in India.
My job has been to improve life in the rural areas so that people will prefer to stay rather than move away
But my thoughts are often drawn back to Papua New Guinea which has a special place in my heart and in my life.
The End this Bloodbath editorial in The National (29/2/08) was a very sharp reminder that the dark side of life in PNG is now attracting attention from the rest of the world, that the “grisly sorcery killings” will only continue unless there’s an urgent change in the response.
The threat of punishment under the law will never be enough to stop these terrible killings. It’s the traditional belief system that must be tackled.
In some of my previous Scarlett’s Letters I outlined the results of an HIV/AIDS focused Pilot Action research I conducted while I acted as Honorary Visiting Professor at the Madang DWU, helped by some of the DWU students. The results of our Pilot Action Research clearly indicated the urgent need to find answers to the following questions:
How do the different communities throughout PNG regard the various AIDS-awareness messages and how was it affecting their sexual behaviour?
Why were more and more suspected sorcerers being killed?
What aspects of the traditional belief system was influencing these killings? And how can these influences be uprooted?
Clearly, there’s a link between the spread of AIDS in PNG and the increase in the so-called sorcerer killings. And it’s not just my opinion. A recent analysis conducted by Miranda Tobias, released by the Centre for Independent Studies in Australia, asserted that “Sorcery, witchcraft and other supernatural forces are widely blamed for causing HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea.....and (that) accusations of sorcery have resulted in the torture and murder of some women”
A number of leading PNG politicians and administrators are aware of this connection and seem keen to have it investigated.
For example Dame Kidu wrote already in December 2005, “I welcome Dr Epstein’s Knowledge and Social Change (KASC) Project Proposal because it introduces a novel integrated approach to the socio-medical aspects of HIV/AIDS in PNG. The project focuses on areas which have not been explored sufficiently in PNG’s war on AIDS. First of all, it sets out to investigate the impact of belief systems and relevant perceptions on the behavioural changes that are essential if the spread of the disease is to be controlled. The findings will then facilitate the design of effective social marketing strategies. Moreover, by including Dr Edwin Mapara, a Zambian socio-medical expert, who has concentrated on HIV/AIDS problems in southern Africa for the past 20 years, KASC offers PNG a possibility to benefit from relevant African experiences. Thus the KASC project could provide an urgently needed supplement to the on-going war on HIV/AIDS”.
However, the PNG powers in being decided against the solution we offered. Yet the challenge remains and the government must confront it.
Until there are clear answers to the questions I have posed in relation to traditional beliefs and the murder of so-called sorcerers...the Why factor.....society at large will remain helpless. Spellbound!
A specially designed Social Marketing Strategy can only be produced to change traditional beliefs and behaviours once we have those answers.
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