The Flagbearer of the national democratic congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has rubbished the myth that old age comes with being a witch.
Responding to a question on what he intends to do to curb the rise in witchcraft myth and to help with the passage of the anti-witchcraft bill, Mahama said that no aged woman is a witch and no aged woman enters the womb of a woman to chew unborn babies or make people poor and most importantly block families from their future prospects.
“Whenever there is poverty and crisis, there is an increase in witchcraft because people don’t tend to take responsibility for themselves, they must find someone to blame for their adversity and so if they are not able to satisfy their full potential, there is crisis, there is hunger they must find somebody to blame and normally they look for the vulnerable person in society to blame and these are the poor old women,” he said.
Mahama continued that, old age comes with its own challenges and some medical conditions that need special attention. However, in our part of the world, these old women are stigmatized and isolated in the name of being witches.
“It is biological, it is medical, you might have a restricted fallopian tube you must have some internal condition that is preventing you from giving birth. These are superstitions that we must kill,” Mahama indicated.
“I have not looked at the anti-witchcraft bill yet but anything that will protect these old men and women from being accused of wizards and witches I think is something that we must look at” he added.
Source: peacefmonline.com
