The Witch Hunts of Papua New Guinea

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2018

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Papua New Guinea, people live in fear of persecution. They might be turned on by relatives, chased off their land by neighbours or brutally attacked by a mob. Why? They’re believed to be witches.

Assignment, this week, is in the province of Chimbu in the highlands – a witch hunt hotspot. It’s a place where revenge attacks can lead to full-blown tribal warfare and where one accusation can destroy a family for generations. Why do so many people here believe in witchcraft and what is being done to change that?

Emily Webb follows one local man – whose motive is intensely personal – on his difficult mission to save the “witches” of Papua New Guinea.

Presented by: Emily Webb Photo credit: BBC / Emily Webb

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading this podcast from assignment.
0:03.4	This episode is in memory of the pioneering BBC journalist Sue Lloyd Roberts, who died in 2015.
0:10.4	Sue was a journalist who uncovered hard to get at stories focusing on human rights abuses.
0:16.6	I first came across this story three years ago when I produced an interview for the World Service
0:21.4	with a woman from Papua New Guinea who was accused of being a
0:24.1	witch after the death of her father. We stayed in touch and through her I discovered
0:29.8	this network of people working to save others accused of being witches.
0:34.0	So what exactly did they do to you?
0:40.0	They attacked me on the road when I was returning from my garden.
0:47.0	There were three men armed with axes.
0:50.0	I didn't know it was coming.
0:52.0	They were waiting for me and when I passed by they followed me and started to attack me.
0:58.0	Jenny pulls up her t-shirt to reveal the scars crisscrossing her back.
1:03.0	They cut me with their axes all over my body.
1:08.0	I have scar marks everywhere from head to toe.
1:12.0	All on the back.
1:13.0	Yeah.
1:14.0	And what were they saying to you?
1:16.0	They publicly accused me of
1:21.0	practicing sorcery
1:22.0	and for causing the death of a little child.
1:25.0	I'm Emily Webb and this week on assignment the witch hunts of Papua New Guinea. I'm traveling by 4 by 4 on a very bumpy road through the Chimbu province of the Papua New Guinea Highlands.
	...

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