Examining Public Responses to the Vigilante Lynching of an Accused Witch in Ghana

Abstract

Assaults on women as witches still occur in modern Ghana. In Ghana, impoverished, widowed and older women are regularly stereotyped as witches and accused of practicing malevolent witchcraft. Many are subjected to lethal and non-lethal acts of aggression. In July 2020, a nonagenarian woman was accused of witchcraft and lynched by a transitory public mob. In this article, we analysed approximately 400 readers’ comments left at a Ghana-based internet news website (Ghanaweb.com), which reported the crime. The objective was to identify and analyse the major themes expressed. The data indicate that the commenters overwhelmingly were appalled by the disregard of the victim’s human rights. In alignment with previous literature, the data also revealed that the commenters attributed the 2020 lynching incident to several established drivers of modern-day witch-lynching, such as scapegoating, patriarchal terrorism, religious manipulation, ignorance about mental health and the ageing process, and limited social safety nets for older and indigent people. Many commenters called upon the authorities to impose draconian punishment on the offenders to deter future incidents. We conclude by offering a set of recommendations for curtailing witchcraft-related violence in Ghana.