Witches Camp

My mom saw Water, a movie about widow's homes in India where they basically discard women who've lost their husbands (even young girls who've been arranged to old men and end up widows). Now I run across this story from the Christian Science Monitor where widows and older women are cast off as witches and exiled in witches camps in Ghana.

A year ago, Fatimata Chimsi was living happily with her son, his wife, and the couple's six children in Karaga, a tiny village in northern Ghana. That is, until the longtime widow was accused of being a witch in late 2004. Furious neighbors insisted that Ms. Chimsi had "killed" an elderly man. Afraid that she might be lynched, she fled in the middle of the night, riding on the back of her son's motorbike. Today, Chimsi resides at the Kpatinga "witches" camp.

Mournfully rocking back and forth on a bamboo mat in her clay hut, she cries, "If my family wasn't allowed to visit me, I would die from loneliness."

More than 1,000 women live in exile among six camps in this impoverished region. Isolating widows or older women as witches is a deep-rooted custom in this part of the world. Indeed, accusations of witchcraft may be seen as a way to keep women subservient in African society.

But various organizations are trying to help. Some are using education to fight superstitions, while others are offering loans to these women to help them develop skills and earn income.

Empowering young women by giving them a voice and positions of authority can help, says Allison Berg, who spotlighted the problem in her award-winning 2005 documentary "Witches in Exile" (www.witchesinexile.com).

I feel as though there is so much work to be done in the world for women in places where they aren't deemed as having any value. I suppose it will take a number of generations for some places to get out of the dark ages. That as our own country tries to push women back into them.