Local leaders in northern Ghana have announced the abolition of the ritual killing of babies born with physical disabilities, who were believed to have been possessed by evil spirits.
About seven communities in northern Ghana banned the ritual of killing the “spirit children,” following 12 years of intensive education against the practice by child rights group Afrikids Ghana.
“Spirit children” were thought to have been a sign of impending misfortune and given a poisonous drink to kill them.
The seven communities that have now denounced the practice are Kandiga, Manyoro, Mirigu, Nabango, Natugnia, Sirigu and Yua. A proclamation against the tradition was made at a grand durbar at Sirigu, where the communities were led by their chiefs and said they would now hand over those who continued with the practice to the police.
Some 30 elders, also called concoction men for brewing the poisonous liquid made from local roots and herbs, have been given four goats, a bicycle each and food, and have been registered under the National Health Insurance.
They are now known as “Life Promoters” and will be in charge of promoting the lives of “spirit children” by visiting schools and communities.
Afrikids has created 60 child rights clubs in schools in the region in order to help educate the community on the need to stop the practice of “spirit children” killings.
One campaigner told the BBC that improved healthcare and education meant such beliefs were becoming less common.
In an interview session with BBC, investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas welcomed the ban but said he could not guarantee that the practice had been eradicated from the whole country.
In one instance, Anas said he took a plastic doll to a soothsayer, saying it was a child with eating problems and physical disabilities.
“He consulted the oracles, jumped up and down and after this said that the oracles confirmed that the child was an evil child and that the child needed to be killed immediately, and that the child had already killed two members of my family,” he said.
Local chief Naba Henry Abawine Amenga-Etigo said that anyone caught trying to harm children from now on would be handed over to the police.
Mr Ayine, from the campaign group Afrikids, said he was “saddened that in today’s era, a child could lose its life because of such a barbaric practice”.
He noted that in rural areas where such beliefs are more common, women often give birth without ever seeing a midwife, let alone having a pre-natal scan. As a result, childbirth leads to complications more often than elsewhere, he said.
He also said that even before the official ban, there had been no recorded case of the killing of “spirit children” in the area for the past three years.
He put this down to awareness campaigns, as well as improved access to education that meant more people understood that physical disabilities had a medical explanation.
In other parts of northern Ghana, elderly women accused of being witches are sometimes forced to leave their homes and live in “witch camps”.
The BBC’s Vera Kwakofi says the Kasena-Nankana region, where the ban has been announced, is the part of Ghana where such beliefs are most widespread.
Sometimes, babies born at the same time as a family misfortune were also accused of being “spirit children” and killed.
The “concoction men” who used to give the children the poisonous drink have been given new roles; they will now work with disabled children to promote their rights.
