Closing Down Witch Camps Will Not Be Easy – Gender Minister

The Gender Minister says it will not be an easy task for her sector to close down the various witches camps in the northern part of the country.

This, according to Cynthia Morrison, is because the camps serve as a safe haven for the people, especially women who have been accused of witchcraft.

“When we were moving, we were thinking that we will close down the witches camp since that is the only solution we had moving from Accra.

“But when we got there we realized that it was not as easy as sitting in Accra and thinking that you have to close down the camp,” she said.

The Gender Minister who was taking her turn at the weekly ‘Meet the Press’ session held at the Ministry of Information said the revelation made it necessary for government to take a second look at its decision and among other things consider renovating the camps for the victims.

“Now, the only solution we have is a law and we have told them even before coming down that we are going to enact a law that will prevent people from lynching anybody.

“But the people themselves once they are branded witches, some of them voluntarily run to the shelter because they know that when they stay there, at night, the young men will come after them.

“And so we went to almost every camp in the north and the only conclusion we have come to after even making the law is how to protect these innocent ones since a lot of them have refused to go home because of fear.

“So now what we are looking at is giving these wonderful elderly women  a safe haven and what we are going to do is to renovate where they are.”

Mrs Morrison also revealed that the Gender Ministry was also putting measures in place to ensure that the elderly people staying in the camps who were not enrolled on the  Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme are registered within the shortest possible time.