Witnesses afraid to talk

By GIDEON KINDIWA
WITNESSES of sorcery-related violence are afraid to speak out because their protection is not guaranteed, an advocate says.
PNG Tribal Foundation director Ruth Kissam said most perpetrators of sorcery-related violence remained at large because witnesses were afraid to help police to prosecute them.
“We don’t have witness-protection centres for witnesses who want to testify and so they are afraid to come out and speak,” Kissam said.
Kissam spoke during a panel at the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges’ Association conference in Port Moresby this week.
She said the belief in sorcery was prevalent in most parts of PNG and hundreds of people fell victims to harassment, displacement, torture and death, but offenders were still out there.
She said it was difficult to prosecute perpetrators because communities acknowledged sorcery violence.
Kissam said some of the main perpetrators were the “glassman” or witch doctors, who claimed to have divine powers to tell whether or not someone was a sorcerer.
“The witch doctors always get away as we do not have a specific provision in the law for them to be prosecuted.
“Section 299 (a) of the Criminal Code Act does not call for the witch doctor to be penalised but only for the perpetrators of violence itself.”
Kissam said witch doctors usually maintained that they did nothing wrong as they only disclosed names but they did not tell people to torture or kill.
PNG judge David Cannings said witch doctors could be charged with murder under the Criminal Code Act.