Join Sarah and Josh as they talk about their recent experiences at two dynamic UK conferences focused on witchcraft and human rights. In this fun and reflective episode, our hosts share the insights gained from the York CREMS Magic and Witchcraft Conference 2024 and the Lancaster “Witchcraft and Human Rights: Past, Present, Future” conference, which centered on the implementation of United Nations Resolution 47/8. Learn about the presentations Sarah and Josh delivered for their nonprofit, End Witch Hunts, including talks on the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, the End Spiritual and Ritual Abuse (SARA) data collection project, and the World Without Witch Hunts Project. Our hosts share about the fascinating research and presentations of the other experts in the field, which offered experienced perspectives on both historical and contemporary issues surrounding witchcraft accusations. Get up to speed on the current status of implementing Resolution 47/8, which addresses human rights violations related to witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks. This episode showcases how these conferences bring together a diverse group of historians, human rights advocates, legal experts, and social scientists in a collaborative effort to combat ongoing witchcraft-related human rights abuses. Whether you’re a history enthusiast, a human rights advocate, or simply curious about this often-overlooked global issue, this first hand report promises to broaden your understanding of the intersection between history, human rights, and modern efforts to end witch hunts worldwide.
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Links
Buy America Bewitched Book by Owen Davies
Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and Witch Hunts: A Global History
Papua New Guinea Sorcery and Witchcraft Accusation-Related Violence National Action Plan
Pan African Parliament Guidelines for Addressing Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks
Donate to Our UK Conference Trip to speak and learn about ending witch hunts
Advocacy for Alleged Witches, Nigeria
The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices
Zoom Event World Day Against Witch Hunts 10th August, 2024.
International Alliance to End Witch Hunts
IK Ero On Next Steps For Ending Witch Hunts TINAAWAHP
Sanguma: Everybody’s Business
Justice for Witches, Pardon Campaign
Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project
Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project
Maryland Witches Exoneration Project
Transcript
Josh Hutchinson: [00:00:00] Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast where for the last two years, we've been talking to you about witch trial history and contemporary witch hunts, known as harmful practices. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. In fact, this week is our second anniversary as a podcast. And
Sarah Jack: this is the episode where we're going to talk about the conferences we were able to attend in England in September.
Josh Hutchinson: That's right. We've come a long way since our first episode about Connecticut witch trial history. Now we've become advocates in this sphere working with others to raise awareness and bring an end to harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft, where basically people accuse someone of bewitching them or their family or their possessions and then attack them.
Josh Hutchinson: On this trip, we were able to meet for the first time, at least [00:01:00] 11 of our incredible guests who we have featured on previous episodes. We got to talk to them in person and it was amazing.
Josh Hutchinson: It really was. There's something very different about meeting somebody in person versus just talking to them over Zoom and emails.
Sarah Jack: For those of you who podcast or guest, there is an affinity in the podcasting community. You feel like friends when you meet someone who has podcasting experience, or it's their hobby or their profession. And meeting our guests was much like that.
Josh Hutchinson: Was amazing. It was so great to meet people from all around the world, many different nations on most of the continents. And just being in one place with all these brilliant minds, these great thinkers was quite a treat.
Sarah Jack: Let's tell our listeners about how we met our [00:02:00] guests.
Josh Hutchinson: Let's do that. We started with a conference at the University of York, the Magic and Witchcraft Conference sponsored by the Center for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. And it was quite brilliant. The theme was healing and health from antiquity to 1850. Right from the start of our getting into York, we had such a great experience in that city.
Sarah Jack: We came in on a train. We hopped into a taxi and our accommodations were contemporary, but when you walk out the door and you hit the cobblestone, it was like walking back in time on our way to the university.
Josh Hutchinson: We got to pass through the fabulous road called the Shambles, which has the Shambles Market.
Josh Hutchinson: Used to be the road where they laid out all the meats, [00:03:00] the butchers laid out all their finest cuts of meat, and today it's still a busy shopping and tourist hub and an active outdoor market.
Josh Hutchinson: Well, we passed through the shambles, which is a medieval street. So the buildings are authentic going back centuries. It's quite different coming from the United States, especially the Western United States, where our oldest buildings that we have we are from,the mid 20th century in most of our towns, to go to a place that has 2000 years of history that York has since Roman times. It was quite remarkable. One of the big attractions there is York Minster, which is a very large cathedral and very impressive looking Gothic structure with all of those pointy [00:04:00] things and the gargoyles and the whole bit.
Sarah Jack:
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And we also were able to pass through the old city gates in the ancient city wall that again, dates back, the original walls go back to Roman times, but were improved upon many times over the centuries. So what's there today is mostly Norman, I believe, and post Norman, but it's still very ancient, hundreds of years old. Some of the positions there, the actual structures, were first in place in Roman times back in the early first millennium.
Sarah Jack: Passing all of these very special landmarks brought us to the University of York where our conference was.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We went to lovely King's Manor, just got to see this amazing, it has [00:05:00] this beautiful ornate crest above the door that, we'll have to put up a picture here so you can see what I'm talking about.
Josh Hutchinson: But yeah, it's quite,it makes it seem like you're going into the King's Manor. It does feel that way.
Sarah Jack: And you'll see the excitement on our face in this selfie that we took.
Sarah Jack: It was a very lovely experience there.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. It was so fun walking up this very short staircase to a second floor and walking into a classroom, knowing that our friends were going to be in there prepping for their own presentations. It was great. We stood around and greeted each other and drank some coffee and the conference started.
Josh Hutchinson: We got to meet in person, Debora Moretti, Tabitha Stanmore, Javier Garcia Oliva, and Helen Hall. You'll recognize those four as previous [00:06:00] guests that have been on this podcast. And we were in a room with all of them and got to listen to their talks and they got to listen to us and it was just a remarkable experience.
Josh Hutchinson: And we also met future guests.
Sarah Jack: Yeah, it was a great conference. There was an online audience as well as in person attendees, and it was a great day, it flew by so quickly.
Josh Hutchinson: It was so fun learning about healing and healers, different magical practices and beliefs about healing over time, especially,we learned, literally, like it says, from antiquity to 1850, covered the whole time period in between, and was amazing. And then we got to talk.
Sarah Jack: In our presentation at this first conference, we talked about the [00:07:00] beginnings of End Witch Hunts, the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, and our podcast.
Josh Hutchinson: We also got to talk about our other projects going on in Massachusetts and Connecticut and the wonderful project happening in the state of Maryland.
Josh Hutchinson: So we got to talk about what's going on in America as far as remembering past victims from historical trials.
Sarah Jack: And we got to speak about our involvement, and especially Mary Bingham's involvement, in the BOLD project, Building Opportunities for Lives and Dignities, which is running in the Jharkhand state in India, which is bringing a holistic solution to ending harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and also supporting the survivors of [00:08:00] these accusations.
Sarah Jack: And we're looking forward to future episodes where we talk about that project much more.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
Josh Hutchinson: One of the things that I enjoyed about this conference, listening to the academic research, and then when we had our opportunity to present, having things come to mind that I'd heard that day in somebody's paper that matches what's happening right now in communities in different countries. It just really was like this. When we're in an episode and we hearin our conversation, oh, this really matches something we learned in a previous episode. But then when you like go to a conference and the subject matter is just enveloping everything that's still happening. And you just see the continuous, there's it wasn't hard to point [00:09:00] out, well, let me tell you, these things are still happening. It was unfortunately, so easy because it, there were all these examples and, just, we're listening to it. So we were just really able to discuss how, what they are researching and how important it is to understanding even the modern framework of some hunts that are still happening. Yeah. Learning about traditional healers of the past and cunning folk, those sorts of professions that occurred in the medieval period, the early modern period, and learning that, you're realizing that those professions are still around today and still involved in witchcraft accusations as they had been previously, both occasionally being accused, but [00:10:00] not so often themselves, but being used in counter magic and for the detection of witches.
Sarah Jack: When we started this podcast two years ago, there were conversations happening on university campuses, in historical society meetings, at local libraries, and in books and blogs. But over the last two years, this podcast has really made a space for the conversations and it just, I really felt that. The podcast has helped to bring together this network of academics and advocates who talk in this space and being at a conference, which was another forum where networking is able to happen was very,well, it's insightful getting chunks [00:11:00] of everybody's mind.
Sarah Jack: In our talk, in addition to talking about healing and medicinal associations with witchcraft accusations in the contemporary world, we also talked about methods to potentially eliminate those harmful practices from happening in the first place.
Josh Hutchinson: And so what we talked about was the need for a holistic approach with a focus on the conditions that allow witch hunts to occur so that you can cut them off at the source, instead of treating the symptoms of the problem, treat the root cause, pull it out by those roots, and toss it.
Sarah Jack: And that includes addressing economic conditions and creating social safety nets for communities. Often, accusations [00:12:00] are happening to families that are experiencing life-changing misfortune that is unexplainable, and so when you address the infrastructure.
Josh Hutchinson: Addressing those underlying economic conditions that lead to the great poverty, which is a big factor in witch hunting. It's one of the sort of prerequisites. You need some bad things basically to be happening in somebody's life in order for them to kind of resort to making a witchcraft accusation and you need them to have no recourse. When people don't have any recourse, there's no insurance system for crop failures, there's no safety net to catch them if the bottom falls out from them economically, it's very easy for that person to want to blame something [00:13:00] or at least seek a cause. Why did this misfortune happen to me? What can I do about it?
Josh Hutchinson: Where when you have these safety nets and insurance mechanisms, then people are compensated when misfortune happens, and they're not down to that last straw. So these things need to be a big part of it. And just addressing worldwide economic conditions is of course a concern anyways.
Sarah Jack: The things you just heard Josh touching on, those probably sound familiar to you if you've been listening to historical witch trial stories, but also we're finding the same influences now.
Josh Hutchinson: If you listen to anything we've done about Salem or Connecticut or England, Ireland, the same underlying conditions were [00:14:00] part of the problem. Economic conditions, as we know from contemporary life, are one of the key stressors in anybody's life. Andso economic conditions, the fear of losing everything, the actually having that happen to you to where you lose everything and have no support.
Josh Hutchinson: Another area that needs to be addressed is climate change. That is actually intensifying both droughts and storms that can kill livestock and crops, and in turn, the people who rely upon those livestock and crops. And that needs to be addressed, and the economics, and you've got to tackle the refugee crisis as well.
Josh Hutchinson: I read recently, there's some millions of people in [00:15:00] transit right now in refugee status, and you do havea lot of people crammed into these refugee camps and you don't know each other, bad things are happening to people, and it just creates another climate for witchcraft accusations.
Sarah Jack: Another area of importance is to raise awareness about the consequences of witchcraft accusations and about laws that may be on the books. In several nations, there are laws against making witchcraft accusations, but those laws aren't widely enforced or known about. And one of the very important things is that change needs to come from communities locally and through community members raising awareness with each [00:16:00] other, having these difficult conversations that need to be had about witchcraft beliefs, and are there other explanations for what happens when bad things happen?
Sarah Jack: And for the communities where there is legislation in place to protect victims, educating them on what their course of action can be or what their rights would be for seeking justice and protection.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, so it's very important that advocates work with the local community and with local politicians and religious leaders andthe police force and everyone.
Sarah Jack: Number of accusations arise because of insufficient healthcare treatment and insufficient understanding of healthcare. So this is something that [00:17:00] we talked about at this health and healing conference was the need to provide healthcare in underserved areas. So people don't rely on unlicensed diviners who will then identify witches. And well, traditional healers provide a very valuable service in the communities that they serve. They're often the only people with any sort of a medical background. But they need to be trained on certain fundamental disease diagnoses to understand basic conditions and know when to refer somebody to another doctor. Instead of at the end, you get to the point of, well, it's not this, it's not this, it's not this. So maybe [00:18:00] it's witchcraft. Instead of that, you want to get to, it's not this, it's not this, it's not this. Here's another doctor that you can go to, or that we can call into our community. Maybe they come around periodically. But there just, there needs to be that health care. There needs to be that option for the second opinion. And people need to know about basic conditions and not be afraid of them.
Sarah Jack: That also would have helped during the Salem Witch Trials.
Josh Hutchinson: Would have definitely helped Dr. Griggs or whichever physician it actually was who diagnosed Betty Parris and Abigail Williams as under an evil hand.
Sarah Jack: There's always connections. There's always connections.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, so many of these communities, while we're on this,remote communities, especially rural communities. And we see this here in America. We see this everywhere. [00:19:00] Rural communities, just the distances between where people are and where healthcare is, are often put people at an extreme disadvantage.
Josh Hutchinson: And you can't timely get to see a doctor with the knowledge of the condition that you have. So there just needs to be better access to these remote communities. There needs to be more facilities nearby, ambulance services. police services need improvement in a lot of remote areas, because again, the local constabulary might be understaffed, or it might be a great distance that people can't travel to report an attack.
Josh Hutchinson: And then after the attacks or accusations happen, there needs to be support. There needs to be healing, therapy, counseling, everything that a [00:20:00] person who survives such an ordeal and is so traumatized by it, both physically and emotionally, everything that they need to be supported later in their lives, instead of just sending them off to witch camp, supposedly, so called witch camps or other refuge centers,allow these individuals to reestablish some kind of life in their new community. Understandably, in many situations, they can't go back to their old community, at least not very quickly, because the danger is still there that they're going to be reaccused and reattacked. But all the things that we take for granted in life, these individuals are being denied because of their being run out of their towns. They're being forced onto the road. They're [00:21:00] being forced to be jobless, homeless.So they need support so they can get back to sustaining themselves and finding value in themselves.
Sarah Jack: That was all conference number one, and we were getting ready to go to a two day conference in Lancaster that was all about the current state of this effort.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, the Lancaster conference began a week after the York conference and was hosted by Lancaster University and the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices, and it was an honor to be invited to be a part of it.
Sarah Jack: That those first moments walking up to the building, there's a gathering [00:22:00] of attendees. Some of us recognize each other or are familiar with some of the work. There was so much excitement to be standing there together and know we're going to walk in and tackle the situation together.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, this conference, the theme was about implementing UN Human Rights Council Resolution 47/8, which was passed in 2021. And finding ways to come together and compare notes and exchange ideas on how to eliminate these harmful practices that we've been talking about.
Sarah Jack: This was the type of conference where you had to, you wanted to get to every speaker. You wanted to find out what is this research or what is this experience or what is this [00:23:00] program that is getting rolled out? It was a robust gathering of information and people.
Josh Hutchinson: It was so robust. There were presentations occurring in two rooms simultaneously. So it was impossible to be able to take in everything individually, but Sarah and I being two of us were able to split up and each of us attend every event and every presentation that happened. And there were just so many great talks. It's impossible to cover them all in this episode, but we met people from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Nigeria, India, so many places around the world.
Sarah Jack: England, of
Josh Hutchinson: course. [00:24:00] England was well represented.
Josh Hutchinson: During the conference, we were able to meet with our colleague and friend, Dr. Leo Igwe, who've you've heard on this podcast a couple of times talking about his experiences working against witch-hunting in Africa. And he received the
Josh Hutchinson: inaugural award from the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. He was recognized, quote, "for his indefatigable work in advocating on behalf of alleged witches at both the global and the regional level, and in so doing, advancing the implementation of the Human Rights Council resolution on the elimination of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks." End quote. Definitely a well-deserved award.
Sarah Jack: Yes, he was so humbled by [00:25:00] it.
Sarah Jack: So the honor was a complete surprise, and he just wants to save lives, and he gets up every day to do that. The conversations he has with colleagues or community leaders or accusers or victims, it's all to save lives and to get others to spring to action, as well. And that's why he got the award, because that is what he does.
Josh Hutchinson: Nonstop, indefatigably, as the award says, he's dedicated to this cause and just saving lives and also helping people once they've been affected by these accusations. He works with a lot of the survivors, helping them get restarted. What Leo does requires a certain amount of courage, as well. [00:26:00] He's putting himself in some vulnerable positions when he's interfacing with an angry mob, for example, or even the police who don't understand what his organization, Advocacy for Alleged Witches, is really about and think, Oh, these are witches meeting and we need to break this up.
Josh Hutchinson: So Leo's very brave. He's very dedicated, committed, very passionate about what he does and everybody loves him.
Sarah Jack: So we attended great talks in the morning, and then it was our turn to come up and give a presentation on spiritual and ritual abuse of how it affects children in the United States of America.
Sarah Jack: That's our newest project. This is a data collection project, so right now, [00:27:00] the project is collecting specific cases of spiritual and ritual abuse that have occurred in the United States.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we talked about the project, we talked about our objectives and the challenges that we face and went over our methodology, which right now where the project is, we're searching the internet for these cases. And then once we identify a case of spiritual and ritual abuse, particularly one that's related to an accusation of witchcraft or spirit possession, we look into those more deeply, find out the jurisdiction handling the case and see what other records we can dig up on it.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. Everything that we are collecting is tied to criminal [00:28:00] charges or a criminal death, something that is heading to court.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, our main goal with the project is to use this data to raise awareness that there is a problem out there, that these aren't one off, isolated cases, there are beliefs that are behind, behind these cases that link them together. So we're looking just to collect the data and we talked about a few of the cases at the conference.
Sarah Jack: We talk about what spiritual abuse is on our World Day Against Witch Hunt episode.
Josh Hutchinson: We do, and we talk about it in our episode with Jordan Alexander. So go back and yeah, watch that one if you haven't already. That's a great episode.
Sarah Jack: And you've also [00:29:00] heard several minutes with Mary that have told stories of some of these victims.
Josh Hutchinson: This talk at Lancaster focused on children, but our research that we're doing is not limited to any age group or any other group of people, either as perpetrators or as the victims. We're not narrowing this down yet, we're just trying to collect as much data as possible so that we can present it to the media, to government agencies, to say, hey, let's get something going to try and fix this.
Josh Hutchinson: And then after lunch, we had another talk, we talked about mostly the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, but exoneration in general, as an opportunity to raise awareness of the ongoing problem with harmful practices [00:30:00] related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And then what was really impactful to me when we're at a conference like this, gathered with advocates in the regions that are seeing witch hunting happening, we don't have to describe or explain in any way the significance of exonerating the historically accused witches. They tell us how significant it is.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. It was wonderful to be there with Leo Igwe in the room when we were giving this presentation, and we were able to tell the story of how he came to Connecticut and spoke at the state capitol to legislators andthe next week ourexoneration legislation passed the Senate 33 to one, [00:31:00] a week after Leo gave that important talk and spoke with Dr. Senator Saud Anwar and Representative Jane Garibay about how meaningful this is in other parts of the world.
Sarah Jack: But the parts of the resolution that are historical, the naming of every known accused witch in Connecticut is in the legislation and an apology from the state.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, those are both the first of their kind, the first bill to name those who were indicted but not convicted, and the first of its kind in America to apologize for a witch trial. So it's very historic. We also got to talk about plans for a Connecticut memorial. And, uh, Day of Remembrance and [00:32:00] exonerations in other states.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. What's so great about this project is it's not just Josh and I and Mary, it's many of us. Our very first episode of this podcast, our guests were Beth Caruso and Tony Griego. They are longtime advocates for the Connecticut Witch Trials. We did join up with them, but it took many volunteers, local and nationally and internationally, as we mentioned, Leo getting to talk at the Capitol, but this remembrance, these remembrance efforts, there's still a large group of people coming together to work on this. So it's a great project and you are welcome to join us.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, please do. Absolutely.Dozens and dozens of people were involved in the Connecticut effort and are involved in ongoing remembrance efforts. It was also [00:33:00] during this panel that we were a part of, this series of three presentations. we were able to meet,previous guest Alice Markham-Cantor, who presented about her ancestor, Martha Carrier, who was convicted in the Salem witch trials. And we also met Charlotte Meredith of the Justice for Witches campaign in the UK.
Sarah Jack: The four of us really enjoyed speaking about pardons and exoneration and the experiences that we have in our ancestry.
Josh Hutchinson: And also that first day of the conference, there was a keynote by Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond, who is the current independent expert on the rights of persons with albinism for the United Nations, and she gave a wonderful talk about how to go forward, how to implement the resolution 47/8.
Josh Hutchinson: And you may be [00:34:00] wondering why the independent expert on the rights of persons with albinism was speaking at a witchcraft and human rights conference. And it's because many people around the world believe that persons with albinism have special magical properties in their bodies and collect body parts from persons with albinism for use in magical potions to bring luck or better health or prosperity, whatever the case may be, they're used in these magical concoctions.
Sarah Jack: Which means children with albinism and others are targets.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, their body parts are typically harvested while they're alive to increase the potency.
Josh Hutchinson: These are attacks that people are surviving, but not always. So the parts are taken while they're alive, and [00:35:00] many don't survive.
Josh Hutchinson: At the conference, there was talk about how many children with albinism are sent to boarding schools specifically for persons with albinism, so that they're safer than if they have to walk to a local school, where their predictable route to that school makes them especially vulnerable to an ambush style attack, and people taking them.
Sarah Jack: And I, I learned at the conference that it's believed at times that persons with albinism don't have a regular death, that they just disappear. And because of that belief, when some are taken and disappear, and have disappeared, there isn't an investigation looking for that person because it's accepted that they just vanished.
Josh Hutchinson: And persons with albinism are also believed to [00:36:00] variously bring you bad luck or good luck, depending on the nature of your interaction with them and where exactly you are with the person. Local belief is exactly shaking a hand with a person with albinism might be considered good luck in one place while walking by them in another place.
Josh Hutchinson: You might feel like you have to spit on yourself or on the ground, to purge yourself of whatever taint there is. It's very terrible.
Sarah Jack: And this is in any culture, in any family. There are persons with albinism in every place needing our protection and understanding.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. All around the world, every continent, there are persons living with albinism and
Josh Hutchinson: every person deserves dignity and the right to enjoy a [00:37:00] life with the fullest possible health and wellbeing that there can be.
Josh Hutchinson: I
Sarah Jack: Really enjoyed getting to speak with Muluka and seeing her and listening to all the conversations that she was having with the various advocates about all the different complex needs and the crises that are being faced in different communities. She was very tuned in and engaging.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, definitely learned a lot from her and the, there was a lively question and answer session at the end of that. Andjust continued to learn more. Everybody was so eager to talk about how do we implement this resolution.
Sarah Jack: That night we had a very special event that we got to [00:38:00] attend.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we went to an art gallery.
Sarah Jack: And Josh had award-winning photos that were a part of a international photo exhibit.
Josh Hutchinson: Yay. That's right. Three of my photos were privileged to be part of this terrific exhibit.
Sarah Jack: Witch Hunts in the 21st century: a Human Rights Catastrophe is traveling the world. It'll be in Lancaster, England for a few more weeks, and then it's traveling to different countries around the world. So people can interact with it and learn about the crisis that's going on right now.
Sarah Jack: If your university has an art gallery that would like to participate in a social justice photo exhibit, please reach out.
Josh Hutchinson: What were your [00:39:00] photos?
Josh Hutchinson: Oh, yes. The first photo was of the Alice Young memorial brick in Windsor, Connecticut. It's a brick dedicated to the first New England, first American colonies, hanging victim of a witch trial. And That is Alice Young. It's a picture of her brick with some roses we had laid during a memorial that we held on May 26th, 2023, the day after the legislation passed the Senate and the 376th anniversary of Alice Young's execution. So that, that was the first one. Then there's a picture of Samuel Parris's sermon book. You may remember him as the [00:40:00] minister of the Salem Village Church involved in the Salem Witch Trials. And the picture is open, the sermon book is open to his sermon he gave on "Christ Knows How Many Devils There are in His Church," which, was the sermon that Sarah Cloyce allegedly stormed out of because he was basically talking about her sister, Rebecca Nurse, which is Sarah's ancestor.
Sarah Jack: Did you go to Salem to get a look at that notebook?
Josh Hutchinson: No, actually it's in Connecticut at the former Connecticut Historical Society, now the Connecticut Museum of Culture and Historyso yeah, there's that picture. And the third picture is of Leo Igwe, paying tribute by laying flowers at the Procter's Ledge Memorial in Salem, which is at the site where [00:41:00] the hangings were believed to have taken place for those convicted under the Salem Witch Trials. And seeing Leo at that photo, looking at it, was very meta experience. It was. Just interesting, I got a picture of him looking at a picture of himself.
Sarah Jack: The other photos that are part of this exhibit are very moving. You are looking at the faces of communities where they have seen persecution against women and children and sometimes men for witchcraft accusations. It's very touching.
Josh Hutchinson: It is. You'll learn a lot about what's going on in the crisis by looking and reading the captions in the booklet that accompanies the exhibit. And then after the art exhibit, we had a lovely [00:42:00] dinner with the other attendees, it was great just sitting at a table. I would have been really thrilled to have been at any of the tables in that room. The only downside is you can only talk to so many people at a dinner. But we had just such wonderful conversation.
Sarah Jack: Yeah, there were attendees from Papua New Guinea at our table, from England. So it was a wonderful conversation.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. It was great chatting. And then at the end of the dinner, Kirsty Brimelow, K.C. gave a talk about the Lancashire Witch Trials. Yeah. And it was a great talk. I really enjoy when this type of gathering is happening. There's just this constant recognition of past matching present. And that even came through in her talk about [00:43:00] the victims of the Pendle witch trials and how that history even sometimes overshadows the court today.
Josh Hutchinson: And I want to say about the barrister here, she, I'm skipping ahead to day two for a minute. I hope you'll forgive me, listener. But she gave another talk about, talking about the history of a resolution against female genital mutilation and how that was implemented and what we can learn from the implementation of that resolution for, to apply to the resolution to eliminate these harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks.
Josh Hutchinson: And dessert was yummy.
Sarah Jack: I think I had cheesecake. I'm not really remembering.
Josh Hutchinson: I just remember it was really good.
Sarah Jack: There was coffee [00:44:00] served and I made sure everybody got a second cup who wanted a second cup.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And there was salmon, which I remember because I ate salmon like four days that week.
Sarah Jack: We really enjoyed getting to try food in England and there were yummy roasted vegetables so often.
Sarah Jack: And this dinner had them also. It was great.
Josh Hutchinson: It really was. Kudos to the chef and team that pulled that off.
Josh Hutchinson: Day two, we rode a double decker bus most of the way to the university.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it was impossible to get a ride share in the morning and wasn't sure about how to go about getting a taxi in the city. So we ended up just riding the bus out to the university and taking a little walk across the campus, which was [00:45:00] the other thing that.
Josh Hutchinson: I enjoyed eating the food. I enjoyed talking to the people and just being out. But I really enjoyed the weather while we were there. And again, this might be, we are going to do an episode specifically about our tourism that we did, but I want to say England, sunny, mild temperatures,in the sixties to seventies Fahrenheit, while we were there for highs, it was very comfortable. You could just walk around. No jacket usually. and,
Sarah Jack: no umbrella
Josh Hutchinson: be fine. Yeah. And we only had to use umbrellas one day that we were there and one morning and it rain ended in the afternoon. Yeah. It was just a lovely time in England.
Sarah Jack: Day two, we did not have a presentation, so we got to just settle in our conference seats and really soak in the presentations and [00:46:00] talking.
Sarah Jack: Speaking of settling in and having conversations, I was privileged enough to get to chat frequently with Nigel Thompson during this conference. The first day, I enjoyed talking to him about podcasting. The second day, we were talking more about what we learned the first day, at the art gallery. He and his team were there recording the conference and interviewing guests.
Josh Hutchinson: Nigel, very pleasant gentleman to talk to. so
Sarah Jack: There's just something that happens when podcasters find each other. There's just, an acknowledgment of craft that you have with each other, and you can talkall day about it.
Josh Hutchinson:
Josh Hutchinson: At day two, we had more great conversations with the attendees. It was amazing that many of them [00:47:00] know the podcast and knew of us before we met them.
Sarah Jack: Yeah, it was such a warm welcome and getting to plan upcoming episodes in person with experts that you're chatting with right there is so great. It's really beats sending an email.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Andit was so great, day two, we were free, as Sarah said, just to appreciate all the other talks that were going on and we learned so much.One great thing about it is we're going to be interviewing a number of these individuals who spoke at the conference. And so you'll get to hear what they talked about as well.
Sarah Jack: Our friend, Dr. Debora Moretti came into town to hear her boss, keynote. They're working on a project together. [00:48:00] And the keynote that Professor Davies gave was so great about linking historic witchcraft persecution to modern witchcraft persecution.
Sarah Jack: It was so great meeting him.
Sarah Jack: Owen Davies keynote was going to be one of my highlights. And it was, I was really excited that I was going to get to hear him speak in person. Having him as a guest on our podcast was a really big deal to me last year.
Sarah Jack: I hadn't even heard him speak, but I spied him sitting in a seat on that first day. And I was like, I thought, what if this is my only opportunity to say hi? It was the beginning of the day. So I'm like, I have to go over and say hi to Dr. Davies. But a little bit later I go in to get a fresh cup of coffee and my colleague is deep in conversation with Dr. Davies.
Josh Hutchinson: That's right. Yeah, Professor Davies is very [00:49:00] interested in what goes on in America. He wrote a book, which is behind Sarah, America Bewitched, which talks about witchcraft persecutions in the United States after the Salem witch trials. And he talks about how more people were killed because of witchcraft accusations after the Salem witch trials than during.
Josh Hutchinson: And so it just. Lovely catching up with him, chatting with him. It's been at least a year since we talked to him about his book on The Art of the Grimoire. And so great to catch up and we got to talk to him more during the conference as well.
Josh Hutchinson: And his keynote, one of the points that stuck out to me, I think it was basically his main point was that if you look at 19th and [00:50:00] 20th century persecutions, extrajudicial, action against people accused of witchcraft are all around the world in Europe, England, the United States, all over. If you look at those 19th and 20th century events, that's where you can really see the closest similarities to what's happening in the modern world. He talked about the close links between those types of events.
Sarah Jack: And it happens to be one of the spaces of time that we haven't had the opportunity to share a lot of stories.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we're really looking forward to talking about that. It's, there's not really a name for that period of witchcraft accusation. I know Sarah did ask Professor Davies, when he was on the show, last year about what do we call that [00:51:00] time period? But that's the time period that I'm most keen on getting into because we haven't really peeled that layer back of what was happening 18th, 19th and 20th century with those post Salem witchcraft accusations in the Western world.
Sarah Jack: Not only has there been. academic literature published on it, but there is newspaper archives, there's articles. It's in the papers.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. If you go to newspapers.com and just type in things like witch killing, witch killed, witch murdered, you'll find a surprising, yeah, witchcraft accusation,you find a surprising amount of things from even your own area. No matter where you are in the world, these things have been going on.
Sarah Jack: [00:52:00] Yeah.
Josh Hutchinson: So yeah, that was a really good keynote.
Josh Hutchinson: And after all the talks were done, a roundtable was formed. We got to sit down,almost all the attendees just sat around tables together and the keynote speakers and some other members of the international network spoke out about what needs to be done to implement the resolution and we got to hear from Professor Davies again, we got to hear from Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond again.
Sarah Jack: Leo,
Josh Hutchinson: Leo Igwe, Philip Gibbs spoke,friend Samantha Spence spoke, Miranda Forsyth spoke, Charlotte Baker spoke, want to give a shout out to the crew that put on the conference, which was Charlotte Baker, Miranda Forsyth, Samantha Spence, Alice [00:53:00] Markham-Cantor, Leethen Bartholomew.
Josh Hutchinson: it
Josh Hutchinson: took many hands to make that thing run the way that it did.
Josh Hutchinson: And we learned so many things during those two days. We've already talked about the commonalities between historical witch hunts and contemporary harmful practices.They're extensive. They are extensive.
Josh Hutchinson: And what I'd like to point out and, talking again about Professor Davies' book, America Bewitched, really witchcraft accusations didn't end when the European witch trials ended. They continued on but went underground and extralegal.
Sarah Jack: That's why today, every day people are experiencing violence from witch hunts.
Josh Hutchinson: People often look back at historic witch hunts and say, well, [00:54:00] that ended 300, 400 years ago and, depending where you are exactly. And they say, well, let's just not do that again. But we see everyday occurrences of witch-hunting of various forms, and especially the literal, brutal, harmful practices are still going on.
Sarah Jack: And we're going to tackle this by everyone working together.
Josh Hutchinson: That was another point that was raised by Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond and many of the other speakers at the conference. Implementation of a resolution of this nature, given the scope of this problem, it's really going to take everybody from every background working together. So researchers, academics, advocates, activists, the media, you need [00:55:00] faith-based communities to get involved. You need non faith based NGOs to get involved. You need people who are in the countries that are most effective and part of those nations and cultures, and you also need people in other locations supporting them.So it really is going to take all hands on deck and there are plenty of ways that you can get involved that I think we'll talk about shortly.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, one thing that came through the keynotes, but, and also many of the other sessions is the need for more and more data to be collected around the world about the scope and scale of the problem and more data to [00:56:00] both quantify the issue, but also qualify what is the actually happening around the world, on the ground when these things take place.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. And it's really about collecting it because there is information, this tragedy can be substantiated with records and the numbers of those are experiencing gender based violence. There's lots of places that there is data, but it needs to be organized.
Josh Hutchinson: There's no government agencies going around our country or any countrygathering data on harmful practices related to witchcraft accusations or ritual attacks. There's no central repository where you can go and say, oh, here's all the data. Butpeople at the conference did talk about the [00:57:00] need to make, to have a centralized database, also where all this data can reside and different researchers can access it and study the situation. But we need this data to be able to make the case to the nations of the world that they should take steps to do what's said in Resolution 47/8 for them to do, which we'll actually cover shortly.
Sarah Jack: I wanted to say something about so what is a UN resolution, but say, you don't really have to worry about that part. You need to pay attention to the values that it is representing, which are things that are important, not to everybody though, but that are important to those that care about safeguarding children and other vulnerable people.
Sarah Jack: And some of those values are equality, [00:58:00] non discrimination, human dignity, child safety, eldercare, women's rights,
Sarah Jack: freedom of thought,conscience, and religion. And to quote the resolution, everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person, and that no one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Josh Hutchinson: That's right. That's a value that we should all share. It's enshrined in constitutions around the world, those rights to life, liberty, and security of person, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, right there in the U S constitution and other constitutions, and also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed 76 Years ago now.
Sarah Jack: We're now going to read to you [00:59:00] a portion of Resolution 47/8. The entire resolution contains two pages of whereas clauses, basically where it's stating, laying the groundwork, stating all the different international covenants and treaties that have been adopted that apply to this situation that say that you need to follow these rules. So we're going to read the recommendations that the Human Rights Council has for its member, for UN member states, the things that states should be doing to eliminate harmful practices. Here we go.
Josh Hutchinson: The Human Rights Council urges states to condemn harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks that result in human rights violations.
Sarah Jack: Also urges states to take all measures necessary to ensure the [01:00:00] elimination of harmful practices amounting to human rights violations related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, and to ensure accountability and the effective protection of all persons, particularly persons in vulnerable situations.
Josh Hutchinson: Calls upon states to ensure that no one within their jurisdiction is deprived of the right to life, liberty, or security of person because of religion or belief, and that no one is subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, or punishment, or arbitrary arrest or detention on that account, and to bring justice to all perpetrators of violations and abuses of these rights in compliance with applicable and international law.
Sarah Jack: Invite states in collaboration with relevant regional and international organizations to promote bilateral, regional, and international initiatives to support the protection of all persons vulnerable to harmful practices [01:01:00] amounting to human rights violations related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, while noting that, in providing protection, attention to local context is critical.
Josh Hutchinson: Also invites states to draw attention to this issue in the context of the Universal Periodic Review.
Sarah Jack: Emphasizes that states should carefully distinguish between harmful practices amounting to human rights violations related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks and the lawful and legitimate exercise of different kinds of religion or beliefs in order to preserve the right to freely manifest a religion or a belief individually or in a community with others, including for persons belonging to religious minorities.
Josh Hutchinson: Encourages human rights mechanisms, including relevant special procedures of the human rights council and treaty bodies to compile and share information on harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, and their impact on the enjoyment of [01:02:00] human rights.
Sarah Jack: Request the United Nations High Commissionerfor Human Rights to organize an expert consultation with states and other relevant stakeholders, including the United Nations Secretariat and relevant bodies, representatives of sub regional and regional organizations, international human rights mechanisms, national human rights institutions, and nongovernmental organizations, the results of which will help the Office of the High Commissioner to prepare a study on the situation of the violations and abuses of human rights rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, as well as stigmatization, and to inform further action by existing mechanisms at the United Nations, and to submit a report thereon to the Human Rights Council at its 52nd session.
Josh Hutchinson: And that resolution was adopted by the Human Rights Council on July 12th, 2021. And since then, there's been some more activity in implementing it. One thing that has been a [01:03:00] major development is the Pan African Parliament developed guidelines for its member nations to develop their own national action plans to ensure coordinated response to harmful practices occurring in accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks.
Josh Hutchinson: So how is the report distinct from the resolution?
Josh Hutchinson: The report it goes in more detail about the nature of the crisis. The resolution doesn't really establish the nature of the crisis in terms of magnitude or how it impacts specific communities, which the report breaks down the impacts to various, to children, to women and girls, to elders. It breaks down all those things, what actual human rights violations are being committed, as [01:04:00] well. It gives some specific recommendations that are for the implementation by the member states and other stakeholders.
Josh Hutchinson: So we're going to read a section from this report. It was given in 2023. We had mentioned it in the resolution, one of the steps is for this report to be created, and it was done in February 2023. We'll read the recommendations section.
Josh Hutchinson: Recalling recommendations made by human rights treaty bodies, the Universal Periodic Review, and special procedure mandate holders, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights recommends that states undertake the following actions.
Sarah Jack: Develop and implement comprehensive frameworks at national and local levels focusing on the prevention of human rights violations and abuses rooted in harmful [01:05:00] practices related to accusations of and associations with witchcraft and ritual attacks, as well as stigmatization.With a view to ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of such efforts, further research should be conducted on the design and implementation of policy and legal measures, including lessons learned from responses to hate crimes, prevention efforts, protective measures, and responsive services.
Josh Hutchinson: Address and promptly investigate human rights violations and abuses rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, prosecute and adequately punish the perpetrators of such attacks, and in that regard, enhance the capacities of relevant stakeholders, including police officers, prosecutors, and judges.
Sarah Jack: Collect and publish information
Sarah Jack: including updated disaggregated data, exploring the behavioral barriers that prevent law enforcement officers from fulfilling their obligations to promptly investigate harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft [01:06:00] and ritual attacks and identify strategic entry points for pilot interventions.
Josh Hutchinson: Review and update relevant asylum policy guidance, including country guidance notes to include all countries that have increased vulnerability to harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft, as well as associations with witchcraft and ritual attacks that potentially threaten the life and safety of persons in vulnerable situations, pushing them to flee their countries and seek asylum.
Sarah Jack: Ensure that national authorities,as well as all human rights mechanisms, effectively address both human rights violations and abuses rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and to association with witchcraft.
Josh Hutchinson: Conduct further research on prevention and responses, including an assessment of the risks related to a variety of settings, including conflict, intercommunal hostility, political and economic instability, elections, natural disasters, environmental [01:07:00] degradation, and public health crises.
Sarah Jack: Ensure that authorities identify, document, disseminate promising practices of combating human rights violations and abuses rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks.
Josh Hutchinson: And organize systematic awareness raising campaigns targeting both men and women, as well as community and village chiefs and religious leaders, particularly in rural areas, with a view to tackling the root causes of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, as well as stigmatization.
Josh Hutchinson: Many more details on the implementation ideas that people have on how to put together national action plans is available in additional episodes. And, we'll go back to this in many upcoming episodes to give more detail on what still needs to be done. But what I talked about when I [01:08:00] was talking about the our York presentation on Ending Witch Hunts, the holistic approach, is basically what's needed to go forward. You need an all-in strategy encompassing all aspects of life and society.
Sarah Jack: We have many guests that you are going to hear soon presented at this conference.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, many coming up and many that you've heard in the past or can go back and check out. So check our show notes for links to past episodes with these great guests who spoke at the conferences and subscribe to our newsletter for information on our upcoming guests.
Sarah Jack: We thank everyone who supported this trip and who have shared information and who used their voice, [01:09:00] platform, and community to advocate.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, thank, everybody that we met at the conferences as well as, like Sarah said, everyone who generously contributed to our travel expenses. We really appreciate you allowing us to do this. We think it's very important for the movement this conference.
Mary Bingham: End Witch Hunts has recorded 99 cases related to spiritual and ritual abuse in the United States. Contributing factors known in some of these cases from the court documents of those who committed the crimes are extreme religious views, government conspiracy theories, Superstition, mental illness, and drugs. Most of these factors were present in the sad case of 13 month old Amora Bain Carson, whose life ended on December 2nd, 2008, at the hands of Blaine Milam and her mother, Jessica Carson. [01:10:00] Court documents tell us that Blaine had a 4th grade education and a history with drugs. Jessica became withdrawn and possibly suffered from psychotic depression after she began to date Blaine and was under his watchful eye 24/7. The pair used a Ouija board to contact their deceased fathers and believed a spirit was released and entered Amora. Blaine later performed the exorcism while Jessica waited in the next room. Blaine was found guilty in 2010 and sentenced to death. However, Blaine filed an appeal stating he can't be executed due to an intellectual disability.
Mary Bingham: Though these factors should be noted in our research, it is most important for us to remember the innocent lives that were lost. Rest in peace, Amora Bain Carson, and all of those who will be remembered in future segments of Minute with Mary. Thank you. [01:11:00]
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for joining us for this episode.
Sarah Jack: Have a great day and a beautiful tomorrow.
Josh Hutchinson: Yay. She said it.
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