Listen in Your Favorite App
Listen and subscribe wherever you enjoy podcasts:
Show Notes
We expand our advocacy discussion on modern day witch hunts and human rights abuses associated with accusations related to witchcraft to Ghana. Guest Peter Mintir Amadu is the Executive Director of the Total Life Enhancement Center (TOLEC) Ghana, a non-profit organization dedicated to community mental health advocacy and support. Amadu discusses TOLEC’s immersive and strategic engagement with witch hunt survivors, including psychological assessments and group and individual therapies to address trauma. Despite the challenges of severly scarce resources and logistical difficulties, TOLEC aims to bolster specialized support in ongoing efforts.
This episode of ‘Witch Hunt’ underscores the necessity of increased intersectional cooperation, funding, and international awareness to tackle the global phenomenon of witch hunts.
Recommended Reading
Websites of Note
Total Life Enhancement Center, Ghana
The Sanneh Institute: Research, Religious, Society
Songtaba.org Securing Basic Rights for Women and Girls
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past
The International Network against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices
Grassroots organizations working with The International Network
International Alliance to End Witch Hunts
Transcript
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that brings you news from the front lines of the struggle against modern day witch hunts. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Modern day witch hunts, also known as Harmful Practices Related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks, are human rights abuses perpetrated against those believed to be witches or sorcerers.
Josh Hutchinson: These abuses include physical and emotional attacks leading to injury and even death.
Sarah Jack: Survivors are frequently traumatized by the harrowing experience of being accused of witchcraft.
Josh Hutchinson: In Ghana, witch hunt refugees flee to so called 'witch camps.'
Sarah Jack: These camps are for people [00:01:00] banished from their communities following witchcraft accusations.
Josh Hutchinson: Living conditions in the camps are deplorable, and the residents destitute.
Sarah Jack: However, concern is developing among advocates and within sectors of the national government in regard to the conditions at the camps and the future of the witch hunt victims.
Josh Hutchinson: One recent development has been onsite mental health intervention to address the victims' trauma.
Sarah Jack: This effort involved physicians from the Total Life Enhancement Center, TOLEC,a mental health facility located in Northern Region capital Tamale and led by Executive Director Peter Mintir Amadu.
Josh Hutchinson: We hung on every word in our engaging interview with Mr. Amadu, and we know that you will too.
Sarah Jack: In this episode, you will learn about the challenges faced by the victims of witchcraft accusation-related violence.
Josh Hutchinson: And about some different treatment methods being employed by TOLEC.
Sarah Jack: We are [00:02:00] delighted to introduce Peter Mintir Amadu, Executive Director of the Total Life Enhancement Center in Ghana and a leading figure in mental health. A licensed clinical health psychologist and university lecturer, Peter is pivotal in advancing mental health services in Northern Ghana.
Sarah Jack: He advocates for mental health across multiple platforms. He mentors youth, and his work focuses on youth and maternal mental health issues. As chairman of the Ghana Psychological Association's Northern Sector, Peter's
Sarah Jack: commitment extends to providing consultation and training.
Peter Mintir Amadu: My name is Peter Mintir Amadu. My background is clinical health psychologist. I'm a lecturer at the University for Development Studies. The University for Development Studies is the premier university in the north. The northern part of Ghana has about five regions, and it was the very first university in the north.
Peter Mintir Amadu: I am affiliated to the Tamale Teaching Hospital, of which I do [00:03:00] a clinical health psychologist consulting at the internal medicine and virtually for the entire hospital. As it stands now,I'm just among two other psychologists that operate within the Tamale Teaching Hospital as a tertiary and a referral facility.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Come to initiatives, what have I initiated as a person? You got me through an organization called Total Life Enhancement Center. That is my initiative. I just felt that a people, we didn't do so much regarding mental health. And in 2017, I established this organization with a lot of young ones around me. So I founded the organization and I lead it at the civil society space where we advocate for mental health in schools, radio, and in the communities. So Total Life Enhancement Center is a [00:04:00] psychology-focused organization and the first private psychology clinic in the entire northern Ghana. I've mentioned that Northern Ghana has five regions, administrative regions.
Peter Mintir Amadu: My second initiative has been in the area of mental health advocacy. So in schools, radio, community, religious organization, and CSOs, health facilities and corporate organizations are places where my services and my skill and my passion have actually driven me to.
Peter Mintir Amadu: What have I supported? I've tried to be a mentor to a lot of young ones in the mental health space who are seeking to appreciate what mental health is and understand. So basic, senior high school, and then the tertiary level.
Peter Mintir Amadu: What are my research interest? I really have great interest in the area of youth and maternal mental health. That's my area of interest. And recently an article [00:05:00] entitled, 'Drug Abuse Among the Youth of Northern Region, The Realities of Our Time.' And that is really taking a lot of shape in the academic space.
Peter Mintir Amadu: What's my passion? What has been driving me as a person over the period? I must admit, to make available mental health services to my people has been my passion. And also to make greatly available psychological services to our operational areas. I have played different roles as a person over the period of time in the north. I have been in the Ghana Health Service over two decades, and so I have worked as the chairman of the Ghana Psychological Association members in the Northern sector, psychologist to CSOs in the northern region of Ghana and a service provider to a lot of organizations. And so in brief, this is what I'll say who Peter Mintir [00:06:00] Amadu is.
Josh Hutchinson: What more can you tell us about the Total Life Enhancement Center?
Peter Mintir Amadu: Yes. Life Enhancement Center, Ghana. TOLEC is an organization with a primary focus in psychology, so the abbreviation is T O L E C G H, and we call it TOLEC. TOLEC is dedicated to the promotion and advocacy towards improving psychological well being. We say that Tolec is an organization that provides mental health and psychosocial support services.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And our vision is to be a center that employs the biopsychosocial and the scientist practitioner approach to delivering comprehensive assessment and health promotion services. The vision of TOLEC is to be a center dedicated to advocating for and delivering holistic health solutions through both local and [00:07:00] external competent methods to our clients. This approach is aimed at enhancing psychological wellbeing, thereby fostering increased productivity and development.
Peter Mintir Amadu: What's our mandate? Our mandate as an organization is to enhance the location of psychological resources to benefit society through our contribution. TOLEC operates in six thematic areas: mental health advocacy, psychological service provision, counseling services, emotional intelligence and management, livelihood empowerment of capacity building, and mental health research. TOLEC is currently located in the Northern Regional Capital, Tamale, in the Sanaribu Municipality. So this is a little I will say about TOLEC, and TOLEC as a psychology clinic and a service provider have been in the advocacy space [00:08:00] since 2018, and we have done advocacy in schools, radios, communities, and corporate organizations, and we currently stand as among one of the very best mental health service organizations in northern Ghana. Even when it comes to the issues of psychological services, we are the first in the entire northern part of Ghana to provide psychological services as an organization.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So this is the bit I would say about Total Life Enhancement Center Ghana, TOLEC.
Sarah Jack: I found your center online when I was doing some research around some alleged witchcraft violence, and I saw that you have an initiative to support women who have been in witch camps. Is that one of your outreaches at your facility?
Peter Mintir Amadu: Yes please. It's one of the outreaches we have undertaken in [00:09:00] the recent past. We have been involved in giving some support to a number of women. In 2020, I was part of a group of organizations. TOLEC was part of a group of organizations that, roll out a number of activities. But the focus at that was with health workers in the districts that hosted this Alleged Witch Camps.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Last year, we took this initiative, and this initiative was supported by the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). And they actually partnered us, basically supported almost every bit of the logistical bit of it to go provide, because they came to us. We have been to these women. We have done the normal physical examinations with them. We provided medication, but there's an aspect that has never been talked about. But the organization said to me, 'do you want to do [00:10:00] something with this?' I said, 'why not? It is an opportunity we have all been looking out for.' So they said, 'okay. Get out there and pack your bag and baggage and go to four districts in the north and perform these particular activities for us.'
Peter Mintir Amadu: So I immediately have to put in place a group of psychologists, that was counseling psychologists, health psychologists, and clinical psychologists, and clinical health psychologists. They were the people I rallied behind to look back. Then, we took up this mantle, and we spent a little over two weeks engaging these women at the alleged witch camps. And so our intervention was the first of its kind in the area of mental health, because people are going in there, but not with assessment in the area of psychology. So we went in there doing psychological assessment.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And what we basically did was to use a particular psychological tool we call DASS, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress [00:11:00] Skill. That is well, utilize and also, and trying to look at some level of distress, psychological distress among these women. So after administering these tools, we found data that was very interesting. Data that was very, at a point, if not for my background as a professional, very scary.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Scary in the sense that a lot of them who have stayed in there years, decades, have nobody to look after them, no shelter, no food, no healthcare, and in most of the places they live in very deplorable states. I, I possibly would delve deeper into this, but let me say that our, that was quite revealing for us, because when it came to the issues of depression, we were quite interested and we realized that even though after administering the psychological [00:12:00] tools, which I must admit we went in there to do an assessment for just around 300 women. We ended up doing a little over 350 women, alleged witches. this was carried out in four districts in Ghana, and those four districts, three of them are found in the northern region. Then one is found in the northeast region of Ghana. And the three found in the northern region of Ghana are the Kpatinga Alleged Witch Camp, which is found in the Gushegu Municipal District. Then we had the Kukuo Witch Camp, which is found in the Nanumba South. And then we had a Gnani Alleged Witch Camp, which is found in the Yendi municipality. Yendi is, call it our [00:13:00] traditional capital. Yendi sits the overlord of our region, call it, I mean we call it, the, the overlord of Dagbon. And so the parliament chief of the northern region sit in Yendi, and in his district also is where, we find the Gnani Alleged Witch Camp. So these 3 are found in northern region. Then in the northeast region is found Gambaga Alleged, Witch Camp, and Gambaga is one administrative district, a colonial administrative district. In the colonial era, Gambaga was one of the, I mean renowned district that govern northern region. So in the colonial era, they had more of Gambaga than even Tamale, where, which is now well pronounced.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So what did we find among the 335 women in terms of psychological distress? We had [00:14:00] 73% of our respondents, that's a little around 247 participants, who were assessed to have high level of psychological distress. Depression we assess among these groups as 61 percent of the participants. Anxiety was around 72%. And the issues of stress related was around 38%. So this was what we found at the alleged witch camps, where we were supported by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice to do an assessment and provide intervention.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So this was the assessment, what we found among them. Many people have come to know very well that when it comes to the issues of alleged witches or witchcraft accusations, a lot of organizations have often [00:15:00] put their energies around the physical bit of it. And two, three years ago, we had the experience of a woman, an old woman who was allegedly accused and beaten to death, and that actually triggered a lot of conversation in the Ghanaian media space regarding the issues of alleged witches. What can we do? And that actually initiated the legislation in the Ghanaian parliament, which is almost at the verge of completion, where accusation of alleged witchcraft will become criminal in the Ghanaian laws.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And these have been terms that we have been finding as, from our research as a professional and leading this institution towards the provision of psychological assessment and intervention. I will take the intervention bit, but I'm sure you may want to ask a bit of questions regarding this.
Sarah Jack: I'm amazed [00:16:00] at what you are tackling for your community.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Thank you.
Josh Hutchinson: At this point, do you have plans to return to do more intervention with these women?
Peter Mintir Amadu: Yes. We have a lot of plans towards, engaging further with these women. But, one after our assessment, so the intervention, but what we did, we, after we collected this psychological assessment and found these, what we did was to put the women in group therapy. So we first of all put them in groups, and our psychologists engage them in at different levels, providing support. And then we also went further to then provide individual intervention, because in the group, lemme mention that in our country and,in the space of Sub-Saharan Africa, issues of mental health and, psychotherapy, not well appreciated. We [00:17:00] went on, people can be in the groups and may not talk, so after engaging them at a group level, we decided to also open an opportunity for a number of the women to go talk to the psychologist on one-on-one basis.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And we basically spent, for logistical sakes, we spent two days in every community. We wish we did more. But the logistics were our challenge. So after providing that, we came back and we provided a report to the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice. On our part, as an organization, what we have been thinking is we know psychological therapy will not yield results overnight, and if it will not yield results overnight, what else do we need to do?
Peter Mintir Amadu: We began this year with some more planning as to what is it that we can go back to the community, but the numbers are huge.
Sarah Jack: Yeah.
Peter Mintir Amadu: The numbers are huge. Even when we got in there and the idea was to do 300, we ended up doing [00:18:00] 300 plus. And even doing 350, I mean35, was just because we were running out of the logistics that were being provided. If we had stayed in there, we would have seen closer to 500 people. And that tells us that the numbers are there. And the idea is to, from this year, to see how we can at least either every six months, if we have the resources, or every quarter to go back there, provide an intervention. But first of all, I often have said that the issues of mental health cannot be talked to people in, in, call it hungry stomachs. The belly is not full. They are not going to listen. So our idea has been, how can we then go back to them with a picnic style of therapy, where we are dining with them and providing therapy, letting them understand that, yes, you are here, the challenges are there, but don't give up. [00:19:00] Life still means a lot for you.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So we are still mobilizing the resources and pushing at our own level to see how we can go back, provide 335 that we have already seen and extend that therapy beyond the individuals. And the idea has always been to also reach out to the communities, these four communities in which these alleged witch,camps are situated. They need support. They need mental health education, they need psychotherapy themself, and they need capacity building, because when they have it these women can be supported, because a number of the women listening to them said that any time at all we are troubled, those who are, who come to our help, our aid, are the chiefs, the community leaders, the assembly members, but these are people who are into a great, but barely doing minimal farming. So when they harvest, it becomes insufficient even for their own families. Let's talk of [00:20:00] supporting another family. So building their capacity, providing agri related support for them so that they can be able to till the land enough to also feed these women.
Peter Mintir Amadu: We have been thinking of also partnering with other organizations, because a number of organizations are in the area of supporting women. A lot of them are shying away from the support for these vulnerable women who, just allegation, there is no substance in it. Culture, religion, superstition. Then they push them there. Because I keep asking the question, how come we don't have the very elite members of our society, their mothers in these alleged witch camps, but the poor woman that have nobody to defend, the poor woman that the woman that have nobody to talk for, are those who are always accused and put in there, and hunger, lack of shelter, water, [00:21:00] proper, mean sanitary condition becomes a challenge for these women.
Sarah Jack: Yeah.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So we really have intention of going back. But we hope we can go back there in another style where we can be able to dine and feast with them and provide therapy, stay there a bit longer than two, three days is the target we're hoping.
Sarah Jack: Clearly, it was a significant event that your team was able to go and engage in these camps and collect this significant data and then I can see how it would also be a very big effort for you to use that data to get support to move forward in the program.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Yeah. So we are currently trying to document a bit around this, and we have actually done a little around social media publication, working a bit to see how we can publish this in academic journal. So [00:22:00] that we can be able to tell the story. We are still hoping that the district assembly, the government, the region, and then well-meaning individuals will come our aid so that we can go back there and provide enough, but this data really is something I know we can use and to make an impact in society.
Sarah Jack: Am I understanding that right now, the president has not signed the legislation on these witch camps? If he does close them, how does that impact these communities?
Peter Mintir Amadu: Thank you. You are right. I think, currently the advocacy in the civil society space is to get the president's assent to this bill and make it law, and we're hoping that this will happen before his tenure of office, which is just in the 7th of January, come next year. If that so happens, we know that [00:23:00] will create another huge need for our people.
Peter Mintir Amadu: But the refreshing part of it is that engaging these women, a good number of them are willing to go back to the communities. So reintegration should be the plan forward, so that in the event where these camps are closed down, where can they go back? Go back to their communities, go back to their families, and the communities need to be sensitized.
Peter Mintir Amadu: The communities need to be engaged, and so it means advocacy needs to get to the community, to understand that these women are just like your mothers. These women are just like those women you have at home, who could be wives, sisters, aunties, Grandma. And all that we can give them at this moment is to say that you have been with us, and it is a difficult moment that probably you have nobody to support you the way you would have wished.
Peter Mintir Amadu: But we are here as a community, and we are hoping that we can be able to provide you. [00:24:00] Because of the desire of a number of them to go back to their communities, if this law comes into force and these communities are,dissolved, what it means is that a good number of them will be more ready to go back, have people to accept them.
Peter Mintir Amadu: The few that have no support, we can look for a reintegrative process where we can engage chiefs, leaders, assembly members to see how they can absorb them. Already, some of the camps have become like towns, have become like big communities. So the women are already very comfortable. A good number of them, they're into agri, into one, I mean small businesses, and they're already doing well. So those of them who don't wanna go back can be supported.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So in the process of, if these things are dissolved, what we can do is to build their capacity to be well supported. So in terms of economics, in terms of their health care, [00:25:00] and in terms of their general well being, because once they have capital, they have resources, when they are not well, they will go to the hospitals. When they are not well, they'll go to health facilities and look for support. But some of their challenges have always been that, even when I'm not well, I have no money. Even though a good number of them, in Ghana we operate the health insurance system. A good number of them are active health insurance users, but sometimes the facilities are at a distance and they may need even transport to arrive there. So when they are dissolved, I think they can be some level of capacity building for the women, some level of support so that they can be sustaining. So income generating activities to sustain themselves.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And I, that's what I can say if this ever, if it ever happens in the foreseeable future.
Josh Hutchinson: You mentioned that you're hoping to work with other organizations that deal with women's [00:26:00] issues. When violence against women is considered in Ghana, is witchcraft based violence part of that conversation? Are these other groups already talking about the witchcraft allegations, or have they yet to get involved in that?
Peter Mintir Amadu: I'm here to get deeper conversations with them. Yes,I have just seen an article about them. I really didn't have so much information. If there is a way, I mean, I'll go into the website and try to get more information, but if there's a way we can connect, you are able to connect us too, we can work greatly together towards supporting, because some other people may have what I call the logistical support. We have a technical support, psychologists, but if we are not able to carry them there, they may not be able to do this particular great service to our women. So I'm looking for that partnership.
Peter Mintir Amadu: There is this other organization called Songtaba, and Songtaba is a women's [00:27:00] rights organization, and they have often engaged us very much when it comes to the issues of alleged witches, and they have, they were those that engaged me to work with them.
Peter Mintir Amadu: We're also trying to talk to the health workers within the district that these camps are found, because a lot of them do receive them at the hospital level, and what support they can give them. So I've often served as a consultant for them in the area of helping the health workers. Now, going to the women, they were not part of it, and we are hoping that we can be able to draw them into the system.
Peter Mintir Amadu: We're also trying to talk to the district assembly, talk to the municipal assemblies, the administrative district, to see. We have something we call the District Assembly Common Fund, and an aspect of it is supposed to be spent on the less vulnerable in society. How can this four districts make this a little token towards supporting mental health services of these women? It's a conversation I think we can begin to initiate.
Josh Hutchinson: [00:28:00] Based on your experience with the women, do you know what kinds of things they're accused of actually doing with witchcraft? What does witchcraft belief look like in Ghana?
Peter Mintir Amadu: Thank you very much. Yes, engaging and talking to a number of the women, what has brought them to the camps have been the fact that a brother's son woke up and said he saw me in his dream, and having seen me in his dream, I'm the one trying to stifle his progress in life. And that is the level of accusation.
Sarah Jack: One of the very elderly woman told me Ghana is a very communal community, where I must admit we love each other and we share a lot of things. And this woman, all that she told me, what brought her to the camp was the fact that as an old lady, [00:29:00] that's how she called herself, 'I was eating food, and this small boy was around my environment, and you can see the boy was looking hungry. I basically served the boy food. And this was my crime, accused of witchcraft, and so they have to banish me to come to that community.' And when they banish them, what they say is that they go there to perform a sacrifice, and when you go there to perform the sacrifice, and you don't return, it means all the accusation is true, and some of them go there, and they realize that even before I left the community, they were following me with cutlasses, with clubs, as if I am a chief. And when they get in there, and the chief of the community receive them, give them accommodation, give them the comfort that they need, some of them may not go back, and so they conclude, yes, our allegation is true.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Another woman said that her rival, in the Ghanaian space, we have a [00:30:00] number of women that are married to one man, so polygamy does exist in our environment. 'My rival, who is the second wife told my husband that she keeps seeing me in her dream and she realizes that her business is no longer going on as I mean it used to be. So I am the one responsible, and so the community come chasing me.' Do this woman find herself in the alleged witch camp?
Peter Mintir Amadu: The pathetic story I heard at this place was the story of one of the women? And what was her story? Her story was that 'I was accused of killing my own son. How did that happen? The child went to school, got to the university, got a job, and started to visit the village, was involved in [00:31:00] an accident and died. And they said that it is the mother, because the mother doesn't want the child to progress. And this woman's pathetic story was, 'if I can bear this child in my womb for nine months, nurse him for five good years, to go past what we used to call childhood killer diseases, why will I hurt this child? This time that he can fetch water for me to drink. This was how painful it was for this woman. If I can take care of a child who was helpless, this is the time you can probably say, mama, I am sending you MoMo, buy a little fish, buy a little meat to cook. Why would I take such a life?
Peter Mintir Amadu: These are the pathetic stories. And a number of them have been accused in ways that you just cannot imagine it. In our last activity we had, we also discovered [00:32:00] two men, or let me say a number of men, but two of them were willing to speak to us. So we have alleged wizards at some of the camps. And basically, their story didn't go far from that of the women. Because somebody see me as standing in the way of his progress. Was accusation because he's my uncle, and my uncle doesn't want my progress, and so my father will now put pressure and the community will put pressure and will banish this person from the community. Their stories are really pathetic.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And the deep seated pain alone is so much to bear for some of the women, and sometimes I look at it, I see. If all the things that we do as a country, as a region, and as a district, if we could even dedicate a little [00:33:00] resource towards the mental wellbeing of these women, I'm sure a lot of them can live there and still fulfill their life, but unfortunately, the issues of mental health little talked about in our country, because when it comes to the issues of mental health, even among the general population in Ghana, mental health literacy is very low.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And so access to mental health services become very low among our people. There is a document that was added in 2014 by a lot of researchers and, I mean pushed by the mental health authority. Our treatment gap currently in Ghana stands at 98%, and when they come to the issues of mental health resources, the professionals are really not available.
Peter Mintir Amadu: As I speak to you now, within the northern part of Ghana, we don't have [00:34:00] more than 10 practicing psychologists, and the northern part of Ghana is put all together, it's almost close to 5 million population, and this population have no adequate mental health resources. Talk about psychologists.
Sarah Jack: And so currently, a lot of us are occasionally under a bit of pressure because as I introduced myself, I teach at the university. I provide consultancy at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, but yet, because TOLEC is a passion for me, I see TOLEC as a passion I must drive to benefit my people, because at the end of the day, TOLEC most of the time doesn't put food on my table. The university puts food on my table. But TOLEC is a passion where I want to be able to reach out to many more people. So at TOLEC, we then bring a lot of young ones to advocate about mental health. And that has been what we have been doing and [00:35:00] leading us to support these women.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And when it come to the issues of maternal mental health, I mentioned that a research interest area.a lot of our women, a research currently on my waiting publication, a little over 60% of mother are battling what we call postpartum depression. In my region, around 58% are battling postpartum anxiety. How can a traumatized woman be able to raise a very successful young man? So I keep telling people when I go to seminars, if we want a very healthy society, our women, our mothers, our aunties, whatever we want to call them, our grandmothers must be in the best of health.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And that health must be in the dual form, mental health and physical health. Unfortunately, mental health is [00:36:00] underplayed, in my country and in my region, a reason why some of us are very passionate about this conversation that we're having.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for this conversation.I'm so glad that you're doing what you do, because these women, they're as important as anybody else, and they deserve their dignity and comfort.
Sarah Jack: We've learned a little bit from some of the other advocacy work that there needs to be this focus on the youth. And I'm hearing that element in your work, the mental health support into the youth, how that can trickle up into the community as they grow. That is a positive support for the future. How do you get to the point where banishment isn't an answer?
Sarah Jack: I was thinking [00:37:00] about how the banishment really is this point at which, it's a solution, but it's also a problem.
Sarah Jack: It's starting a problem.
Peter Mintir Amadu: When you look at the banishment as we currently have it in our situation, this happens, and those women are banished from the community. They leave all their livelihood, they leave all their connection, they leave all their relationship, and they leave everything they have ever lived for to a land that they don't know anything about, but just because that land is accommodating.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And so the issues of mental health plays a role in this banishment, because at the end of the day, if you think somebody else has a challenge, have you listened to this person? Have you engaged this person? Because in most of the banishment situation, they never, nobody ever listened to this one. There's never a listening ear. [00:38:00] What they call a listening ear, where the problem is sending you to a particular group of people who have already made up their mind anyway, so they just send you there for, okay, we have sent you to this place to verify, but they already know what they want to do. If the conversation around mental health can be enhanced, what we do have is that a lot of people will look at this with some other perspective. What other way could we have looked at this without banishing this woman, without asking this woman to leave her business in that village, to move to a village she knows nobody and she has no connection?
Peter Mintir Amadu: That conversation can start. And, Maybe a reason why, when we started our organization, the idea was to see how we can engage the youth and our reason for engaging the youth was to say that catch them young and they will [00:39:00] understand mental health and will use mental health services, even in their old age. So if they start understanding mental health now, they will build what I call resilience. They will build what I call self esteem. They will build assertiveness skills. So they will be able to make conversations to fight for people within the community. Sometimes some of the women just need somebody to say that, please, I will challenge you, and the problem will drop that whole accusation, but there's nobody to challenge. And these old women virtually are left to their fate.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Two years ago, I met a woman who told me her story. works in our national capital. A very responsible woman, but her mother stays in the village in the northern part of Ghana, and the children are well to do. A community member allegedly accused the woman, [00:40:00] and within 24 hours, six children of this woman arrived in the village. The best of cars that the village has never seen, arrived in the best of dressing the village, possibly have never seen, and that whole conversation died.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So this is what it means for our women. Some of them just go through some of these things just because there's nobody to fight for them. And so if the youth of today are educated about mental health, and they're ready to assertively speak for people who are accused wrongly, I'm sure we can go somewhere. We will get a way towards finally minimizing this banishment from our communities.
Peter Mintir Amadu: And that's why our activities as an organization have taken the youth dimension, where we want the young ones to lead. So we have a basic school mental health advocate. We have secondary, senior high school mental health advocate, and we have tertiary mental [00:41:00] health advocate, where we want the youth to lead the advocacy, youth leading change in the environment, so that they themselves can learn about mental health, educate their colleagues, and provide the resilience that they need, because I keep saying that in the area of our life, I have come to realize that, in my little study in the area of psychology, I have come to develop a statement that I say that we are what we think. And this is premised from Epictetus quote of, 'it is not what happens to you, but how you react to it,' Epictetus, the great philosopher. So I've come to believe that what we think as a community. What we think as a people is what we live with, because we come to think that once I don't make progress in life, somebody's behind that, my challenge. Somebody has not studied, somebody have not invested in his youthfulness, and he think the old lady in the village is the reason [00:42:00] why he's not in the best of motorbike, he's not using the best of cars, he's not in the best of building. But that is just because of the way the person is thinking.
Peter Mintir Amadu: If we can engage our youth to begin to look at the way they think that will have a great influence in the behavior that will exhibit in their old age and all of that. So the reason why we, the youth have become a focus
Sarah Jack:
Peter Mintir Amadu: and we think that if we can do this and do this very much, I'm sure our next generation will be better in terms of mental health access and service provision.
Peter Mintir Amadu: Let me divert a little bit to the area of women. The reason why we have also diverted to women as a focus. A traumatized woman, an battered woman, and a woman that is battling one challenge or the other cannot raise the best leader of the world. How can [00:43:00] that woman raise a a child, who has been accused of witchcraft? That woman is in pain. That woman is traumatized, and she cannot be in the best frame of mind to raise an adult who become that responsible in society. So we need to support our women and that is an area where we have, we taught, because the research in that area is quite scanty. And the work we have done, we have a number of data just waiting to publish this and let the people understand that we need to support women and the youth, if we want a better society.
Josh Hutchinson: Are there ways that we and our listeners can support your efforts?
Peter Mintir Amadu: We have often called for support from the international community. And I must admit we have been operating for the past, seven, eight years. We really don't have any funding, we [00:44:00] don't have any donor, and we don't have anybody who comes to, say, at the beginning of the year, 'what are your plans? Take this and begin to implement in the area of youth mental health or adolescent mental health and in the area of maternal mental health.' No, but we just do this outta passion.
Sarah Jack: The invitation from you has been my fuel or my source of motivation. Because I keep telling people if goodwill was filling bank accounts, I'm sure I could compete with Bill Gates and his compatriots, because people tell me what you do is good, but that doesn't translate to money in my bank account. It doesn't translate to fuel in the vehicles that we use as an organization.
Peter Mintir Amadu: But can we stop? Somebody must be ready to take this somewhere. So in the area of funding, I must admit, we have been challenged. And we will more open [00:45:00] and more ready to collaborate with international organization, local organization,even individuals who are passionate about the issues of alleged witchcraft and want to support. We are more ready to collaborate with them, especially to send our psychologists to these women every quarter or even every month. I cannot fund that now.
Peter Mintir Amadu: So we can only call for support from the international community. But even before the international community come, I want to charge even my own people, the local community, our chiefs, our government functionaries, and the CSOs in Ghana, to see this as a priority, to see this as a need, because if a section of our population are suffering, we cannot claim to be complete.
Peter Mintir Amadu: For us, I will say, if there are any international organizations that want to partner with us to make mental health [00:46:00] services readily available for these women, the immediate community, the health workers within this community, I must admit, we are, we will be grateful to collaborate and to assure you that your funds that you are donating, your funds that you are pushing through TOLEC will really reach these women in ways that will change their lives, because we will build their capacity.
Peter Mintir Amadu: We will resource them, and they may not need to continue dependent on the occasional support that people can. People just come and they're coming with a handful of rice. How long will this woman take with this? Sustaining income? Income where they can depend on. So we are more open and we are ready and very willing to collaborate with international organizations to provide therapy, to provide infrastructure, to provide shelter, and to provide clothing [00:47:00] and food for these women, because these are their areas of need.
Sarah Jack: And now for Minute with Mary.
Mary-Louise Bingham: It was an honor to meet with advocate on gender-based violence in India, Neelesh Singh. Neelesh and his team help women who are wrongfully accused of practicing sorcery heal both physically and emotionally so they can find their voice and pay it forward. Education is key for the women who learn their legal rights for their unique circumstances.
Mary-Louise Bingham: To heal the hearts of these wounded survivors, Neelesh and his team offer counseling, music, and art therapy. The art therapy will start small. The survivors will expand their art until they feel comfortable to create street art on walls donated by various law enforcement agencies. In other cases, women will be encouraged to write and direct their own street plays, telling the public of their stories to create [00:48:00] awareness and education.
Mary-Louise Bingham: Stay tuned for an upcoming episode on this podcast where you will hear more details as to how Neelesh's team empower by helping the survivors gain confidence and find their inner strength so they can be heard. Thank you.
Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
Josh Hutchinson: And here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a non profit, 501c3 organization, Weekly News Update. As we step into Women's History Month, starting Friday, March 1st, with International Women's Day on March 8th, embracing the theme, 'Inspire Inclusion,' I prompt you to reflect on the embodiment of the international woman. Who does she remind you of? A figure of historical significance, or perhaps someone enduring the trials of today's world?
Sarah Jack: When pondering the enduring persecution and marginalization faced by women throughout history, your thoughts may gravitate towards the women in northern and northeast Ghana [00:49:00] relegated to witch camps due to accusations of witchcraft. These camps, a stark reality for many, symbolize not just the psychological and quality of life detriment stemming from such accusations, but also connect us to a broader narrative that spans centuries and continents.
Sarah Jack: The prevalence of depression, influenced by factors like gender, marital status, and the absence of biological children among these women in witch camps, coupled with their almost universally low quality of life, underscores the critical mental health and well being issues they face.
Sarah Jack: These women living on the fringes of society are the modern day echoes of the ancestors who faced execution in historical witch trials, embodying the perennial outcasts, the feared 'witch' within their communities.
Sarah Jack: As International Women's Day urges us to inspire inclusion, let's remember that the international woman of history is also the woman in a Ghanaian witch camp today. She is the mother, sister, and daughter [00:50:00] ensnared in these circumstances. But she's also the advocate fighting for those trapped in the shadows of vulnerability. In the coming weeks, we invite you to join us in a conversation about women around the world who endure persecution and exclusion,branded as outcasts and feared as witches in their communities.
Sarah Jack: This Women's History Month, we are called upon to partake in the collective action to impact history for women everywhere. How are you contributing to this chorus of voices, both past and present, forging a future where dialogue is not just powerful, but transformative, evolving into actions that construct a true realm of justice? Together, we can shift narratives and foster a world where inclusivity reigns supreme. Honoring those who have suffered and paving the way for a future where no woman stands alone in the face of injustice.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Witch Hunt.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you're [00:51:00] listening.
Sarah Jack: Visit us at aboutwitchhunts.com/.
Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends, families, acquaintances, neighbors, and anybody you meet about witch hunt.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
Leave a Reply