Burkina Faso launched an effort on Sunday to offer identity cards to hundreds of women chased from their village for alleged witchcraft and often forced to live on society’s periphery in abject poverty.
”We are here to tell them, you are citizens,” Burkinabe Human Rights Minister Monique Ilboudo told the country’s TNB public television station, referring to women known locally as ”soul eaters”.
”We cannot exclude citizens through accusations that aren’t backed up,” she added.
Predominately members of Burkina’s dominant Mossi ethnic group, alleged ”soul eaters” are women found guilty by their village of causing someone’s demise, among a people who believe death is not a natural phenomenon.
Suspects must endure a ”truth test” that consists of drinking a strong, ”secret” beverage that allegedly renders them unconscious and forces them to admit they ate the soul of the deceased.
The soul eaters are then killed, beaten or chased from their village. Launched at the Delwende refuge in Ouagadougou’s working-class neighbourhood of Tanghin where about 500 alleged soul eaters have sought shelter, the identity-card programme apparently offers one means to reinstate them into society.
But whether a piece of paper will change mentalities is anybody’s guess. Previous awareness campaigns have failed to eradicate strongly anchored beliefs about soul eaters.
About 600 alleged soul eaters have received support in Ouagadougou, but the majority have been reduced to begging in the country’s urban hubs. — Sapa-AFP