Combatting Witchcraft-Related Violence Through Song

The AHRC-funded project Combatting Witchcraft-Related Violence through Song builds on the impact Professor Nanette De Jong’s previous AHRC project, Arts-in-Action, had on combatting gender-based violence through music and the arts.

Early in Arts-in-Action we identified a covert, yet major, threat of gender-based violence - witchcraft-related violence, with elderly women the frequent targets.

Physical features common to ageing - wrinkled skin, thinning hair, missing teeth - when associated with women, are routinely equated with ‘being a witch’.

If accused, these women are pushed into social isolation, many beaten, maimed, raped, or murdered.

We established a singing-intervention among the older women in the AmaZizi chiefdom in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa, to provide opportunities for the women to build community and to use the singing texts to voice personal experiences of violence and educate the public about ageing.

This small intervention proved transformative not solely for the women, but also the AmaZizi community, with witchcraft-related accusations actually decreasing in the region as a result.

Combatting Witchcraft-Related Violence through Song will bring the singing intervention to 10 additional chiefdoms across Eastern Cape, tackling witchcraft-related violence at the provincial level by engaging over 60 villages and over 1-million new users.