The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AFAW) urges the new president of Malawi, Lazarus Chakwera, to take urgent steps to end the incessant killing of alleged witches in the country. This appeal has become necessary following reported cases of the brutal murder of persons accused of witchcraft in this southern African nation. In recent years, Malawi has become a witch killing field where suspected witches are frequently abducted, attacked, stoned to death or lynched by local mobs. Malawian authorities-including the police and community leaders-have caved into the terror of witch hunters, lynch mobs, and other perpetrators of jungle justice.
Dr-Lazarus-Chakwera-Malawis-sixth-President
The killing of suspected witches is a horrific practice that should not be associated with 21st century Malawi. Witch persecution and killing goes on because the government has not deemed it a priority to end this campaign of violence and bloodshed. The government has not realized that the lives of alleged witches matter.
For instance, an online media platform recently reported that a 41-year-old man had been killed in Rumphi in the Northern region. Accused of causing the death of a relative, this man was assaulted and murdered by the village mob. These killings have been going on for too long and in far too many places across Malawi. There have been cases where alleged witches were stoned or beaten to death by their accusers. There have been incidents where persons accused of witchcraft are abducted and held hostage. Now President Chakwera must say to the entire nation: Enough is enough. Enough of these atrocities, enough of this bloodshed. He must provide the leadership that has been missing in the fight against witch persecution and killing. Chakwera must read the riot act to witch hunters and killers in the country and use his position and powers to end this carnage and mindless violence.
Leo Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches which campaigns to end witch persecution in Africa by 2030
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
