Yes, witch tri­als still hap­pen in the world. In Nepal, women are accused of being witches when bad things hap­pen in the area. The women are con­fined, beaten, and forced to eat excre­ment until they give in just so the tor­ture can stop.

From IPS reporter Mallika Aryal gives us one exam­ple an looks into rea­sons why this still occurs.

In Sun­sari, 650 km south-east of Kath­mandu, Jabrun Khatun, 26 was dragged out of her house and beaten in the mid­dle of the vil­lage. “They said I was a witch, that because of me a lot of chil­dren were falling sick and beat me for hours. Then they stepped on my chest and forced me to eat human exc­reta,” said Khatun.

They impris­oned her for days until local chil­dren let her out. She was all alone in the fam­ily as her hus­band had recently left to work in neigh­bour­ing India. “I have come all the way to Kath­mandu look­ing for jus­tice,” said Khatun.

In Kalilali, far west Nepal, Jugu Kumari Chaud­hari was accused of prac­tic­ing witch-craft when a close fam­ily mem­ber died. Chaud­hari was beaten up and her hus­band had to come res­cue her. “We went to the police sta­tion to file a com­plaint but they said it was a per­sonal mat­ter and we should resolve in the com­mu­nity,” said Chaudhari.

Gen­der activists have been fight­ing for years to end this extreme form of vio­lence against women, but the prob­lem is still com­mon in the Tarai, the south­ern plains of Nepal, and in areas where there’s high illit­er­acy and poverty.

“An edu­cated woman from higher-income fam­ily and higher caste never gets accused of prac­tic­ing witch­craft,” said Indu Pant, gen­der advi­sor at CARE Nepal. Urmila Bish­wakarma of the Dalit media group Jagaran Media Cen­tre has been doc­u­ment­ing cases of Dalit women who have been accused as witches and tor­tured. She said that Dalit and other minor­ity women are the most vul­ner­a­ble because they are socially, cul­tur­ally, finan­cially and polit­i­cally backward.

Pant says that the prob­lem is exac­er­bated because the state is often miss­ing in these regions, so the vic­tims have nowhere to go for help. “Even when they try to seek help from the police they are often turned back because the police says it is a per­sonal mat­ter and must be solved in the com­mu­nity. This cul­ture of impunity lets the per­pe­tra­tors off the hook.”

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