Call for PNG inquiry into sorcery related violence

9:28 pm on 22 September 2015

There is a call for Papua New Guinea to declare an emergency in response to increasing violence against women accused of sorcery.

This is the call from the PNG Oxfam country director, Esme Sinapa, at an Australia Senate inquiry into Canberra's aid programme in PNG.

Ms Sinapa says women are being accused of witchcraft when the real issue is often about land rights.

She says many women have died because they couldn't get help soon enough.

Ms Sinapa says PNG needs to declare an emergency on sorcery-related violence, because it is becoming so widespread.

A photo taken on February 6, 2013 shows a young mother accused of sorcery who was stripped naked, reportedly tortured with a branding iron, tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tyres, in Mount Hagen city in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

A photo taken on February 6, 2013 shows a young mother accused of sorcery who was stripped naked, reportedly tortured with a branding iron, tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tyres, in Mount Hagen city in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Photo: POST COURIER / AFP

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