Thank you, committee members, for the opportunity to testify here today. My name is Leo Igwe, a citizen of Nigeria and a citizen of the world. I hold a doctoral degree in religious studies from the University of Bayreuth and wrote my thesis on witchcraft accusations in Ghana, West Africa. I have campaigned against witch persecution and ritual attacks since the 90s, and in 2020, I founded the Advocacy for Alleged Witches to end witch hunting and related injustices in Africa by 2030. It is natural for the Advocacy for Alleged Witches to support Bill H. 1927, urging the exoneration of eight individuals convicted of witchcraft in Boston and all others accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts.
This exoneration will serve as a statement of hope and relief to tens of thousands in Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, India, and Papua New Guinea who still suffer similar accusations, persecution, and miscarriage of justice in this century. In my part of the world, witch trials have not ended. Alleged witches, mainly women, children, and elderly persons, are beaten and flogged. They are tortured, stripped naked, set ablaze, or buried alive. Witch hunting persists because the justice system fails too many of the accused, as was the case in colonial Massachusetts.
Based on decades of studies, research, and activism, I can confirm that your favourable consideration of this bill will surely resonate with contemporary victims of superstitious fear and their families. It will boost ongoing efforts to end abuses linked to belief in witchcraft in other parts of the world. Thank you
Leo Igwe (born July 26, 1970) is a Nigerian human rights advocate and humanist. Igwe is a former Western and Southern African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and has specialized in campaigning against and documenting the impacts of child witchcraft accusations. He holds a Ph.D from the Bayreuth International School of African Studies at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, having earned a graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Calabar in Nigeria. Igwe’s human rights advocacy has brought him into conflict with high-profile witchcraft believers, such as Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, because of his criticism of what he describes as their role in the violence and child abandonment that sometimes result from accusations of witchcraft. His human rights fieldwork has led to his arrest on several occasions in Nigeria. Igwe has held leadership roles in the Nigerian Humanist Movement, Atheist Alliance International, and the Center For Inquiry—Nigeria. In 2012, Igwe was appointed as a Research Fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation, where he continues working toward the goal of responding to what he sees as the deleterious effects of superstition, advancing skepticism throughout Africa and around the world. In 2014, Igwe was chosen as a laureate of the International Academy of Humanism and in 2017 received the Distinguished Services to Humanism Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
Igwe was raised in southeastern Nigeria, and describes his household as being strictly Catholic in the midst of a “highly superstitious community,” according to an interview in the Gold Coast Bulletin.[1] At age twelve, Igwe entered the seminary, beginning to study for the Catholic priesthood, but later was confused by conflicting beliefs between Christian theology and the beliefs in witches and wizards that are “entrenched in Nigerian society.”[1] After a period of research and internal conflict due to doubts about the “odd blend of tribalism and fundamentalist Christianity he believes is stunting African development,” a 24-year-old Igwe resigned from the seminary and relocated to Ibadan, Nigeria
