Academic Papers: Promising Practices

Effectiveness of IEC interventions in reducing HIV/AIDS related stigma among high school adolescents in Hawassa, Southern Ethiopia, 2008

Misconceptions on HIV transmission and prevention, stigmatizing and discriminatory attitudes were prevalent among the adolescents. Remarkable reduction in HIV related misconceptions, stigmatizing and discriminatory attitudes were observed. Hence, campaigns using combined IEC interventions on HIV/AIDS need to be intensified to dispel some of the prevailing misconceptions and associated stigma and discrimination among school adolescents.

See full article here.

Child Abuse in the UK: Witchcraft and Possession, Oct 2013

The essay is an argument for legislative reform linking the branding of children as witches and possessed and incitement to significant harm. It will propose that the law is reformed to include the criminal offence of inciting significant harm to a child.

See full essay here.

Strategic Framing Works(s): How Microcredit Loans Facilitate Anti-witch-hunt Movements, Feb 17 2012

This article shows how a social movement organization focused on microcredit loans is able to mobilize a community against its own cultural practice of witch-hunts. Successful mobil- ization against witch-hunts are possible when two conditions are met: first, when activists are able to tap into microcredit groups’ social capacity for collective mobilization (defined by ties of mutual dependence, reciprocity, and friendship); and second, when activists are able to use strategic framing to present a coherent argument about the congruence of microcredit and anti-witch-hunt goals. In this context a master frame (women’s development) emerged that effectively forged the seemingly disparate goals of microcredit loans and anti-witch-hunt campaigns into one synthetic movement. In contrast, successful mobilization against witch-hunts was difficult in areas where the activists did not have access to the microcredit networks or were not able to strategically frame the campaign.

See full article here

An Anthropological Study of Witchcraft-related Crime in the Eastern Cape and its implications for Law Enforcement Policy and Practice, Jan 2009

This research sought to investigate the phenomenon of witchcraft-related crime in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, and its implications for law enforcement policy and practice. The primary motivation for a study such as this emerged from the need to address the lack of academic knowledge about witchcraft-related crime, especially in the Eastern Cape. The study is anthropological in focus, and is thus based on anthropological techniques of data gathering.

See full report here

CORI Thematic Report Nigeria: Gender and Age, December 2012

The reports detailedly presents the issues of women, victims and persons at risk or trafficking, children, and LGBTI individuals in Nigeria, including the current conditions and promising practices. See full report here

Mission to Sierra Leone: comments by the State on the report of the Special Rapporteur, 17 February 2014

History has shown that with education and improved health and low mortality, the belief in witchcraft disappears in Sierra Leone. As regards female genital cutting, the Government has worked very closely with the UN family agencies to ensure that a memorandum of understanding was signed with the ‘Soweis”-the female traditional leaders who perform FGC-in order to maintain the legal age of eighteen below which it is currently illegal to perform such harmful practices. The Government will continue to support massive sensitization and awareness-raising on the ills of this issue.

See full report here

Angola – Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, 24 March 2010

The Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, established in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 5/1 of 18 June 2007, held its seventh session from 8 February to 19 February 2010. The review of Angola was held at the 10th meeting, on 12 February 2010. The delegation of Angola was headed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Relations, Georges Chikoty. At its 14th meeting, held on 16 February 2010, the Working Group adopted the report on Angola.

A list of questions prepared in advance by Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Sweden, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Argentina, Belgium and the Netherlands was transmitted to Angola through the troika. Those questions are available on the extranet of the universal periodic review.

See full report here

Working with older persons in forced displacement, 2013

Today, it is estimated that some 12.5% of the world’s people are over 60 years of age; 22% are over 50, considered “old” in contexts where life expectancy is lower. By 2050, one quarter of the world’s population will be over 60 (more will be over 60 than under 12), and many will be over 80. An effect of this trend is that more older persons are being displaced. In 2000, 8.5% of all the persons of concern to UNHCR were already older persons, but in some situations they amounted to one third. While old age is often associated with increased need, it is important to recognise and support the roles and responsibilities that older women and men fulfil in their families, communities and societies.

See full report here

Training Sessions on Human and Women’s Rights to address Violence against Persons accused of Witchcraft in the Central African Republic, October 2012

Hundreds of people – mostly women – in the Central African Republic are accused every year of practicing witchcraft. “Witches” are often accused of causing a wide range of misfortunes such as infected toes, collapsed granary roofs, and even bad weather. Witchcraft is included as a crime in the country’s penal code (even punishable by execution), which is rarely contested given that the belief in witches as a source of several misfortunes is deeply embedded in the Central African Republic’s society.
Women, particularly old single women, and girls who are accused of witchcraft are often subject to SGBV. Due to cultural stigmas and lack of knowledge on basic rights, SGBV cases are often not reported, consequently leaving survivors/victims unassisted and perpetrators unpunished.

See full report here

Hunting Witches – World Policy Journal Article by WHRIN

Article by Gary Foxcroft, Executive Director, WHRIN. Read full article here 

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