Witch Village In Ghana

Living in squalor and sentenced to a life of shame and hard labour, these are the women who have been forced to live as outcasts amid accusations that they are witches. Cut off from their communities and abandoned by their families, they are banished to spend the rest of their days in 'witch camps'. Hundreds of women in northern Ghana are accused of witchcraft and condemned to a life of extreme violence, harassment and isolation.

Many of the women in the camps have been accused of being witches by relatives or neighbours. Once an accusation is made they are banished from their villages and sometimes chased out by a violent mob.

Often young female relatives are sent with them to live in the camp as an ‘attendant’ and also live in the same appalling conditions, facing terrible discrimination. In some cases, the fate of the women is determined not by the elders of their village, but by the dying contortions of a slaughtered chicken.

If the chicken falls with its head down and its feet in the air, the woman is declared a witch. If it falls feet down, her innocence is declared. However, regardless of the outcome, once an accusation has been made a woman will be sent to the camp whether she's 'guilty' or not, just in case some villagers do not believe her innocence. A report compiled by international aid charity ActionAid documents cases of both elderly and young women abandoned by their families and trapped in the ‘witch camps’ until they die.