11 Dec 2013

PNG Govt must consult over sorcery violence: Highlands Defenders

5:22 am on 11 December 2013

A Papua New Guinea organisation helping the survivors of sorcery-related violence says the government needs to talk to people at the grassroots level before deciding how to deal with the issue.

Two representatives of the Highlands Human Rights Defenders Network spoke at a conference last week in the Eastern Highlands' provincial capital Goroka.

Conference delegates heard that brutality against women accused of sorcery or sanguma is on the rise and spreading to areas where it is not traditionally part of the culture.

One of the human rights defenders, Mary Kini, says it can be seen as just another form of gender based violence and the government must take it very seriously.

"They need to listen to the - you know, like the NGOs and the churches and the CBOs on the ground because they're everyday walking around in the community and they know whereabouts the event or the problems on the ground so it's nothing you can take out of blue and you can make the legislative up there."

Mary Kini says the government's reintroduction of the death penalty may make it even more difficult to bring women's attackers to justice.