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| The Huffington Post blog. ... |
Friday, May 16, 2008 --- 70 days ago http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-and-marc-kielburger/debunking-africas-witchc
| Eunice Kimutai doesn't believe in witches. The trouble is, some in her community do.
A retired school teacher near Tanzania's western border, Kimutai now leads the charge in her village to have people tested for HIV. It's a daunting task, as the elders in her community have taken to telling people who fall ill with the disease that they are possessed by evil spirits.
"When you believe (in) witches, you don't go for a test," says the elderly grandmother. "People say you have to go to a witchdoctor instead of going to the hospital."
To counter their claims, Kimutai provides community members with pamphlets on AIDS and encourages those with symptoms of HIV to see a doctor, even though witchdoctors are much cheaper than hospitals and have become ingrained in local beliefs.
"When you tell them they have signs of HIV, they say 'no,'" Kimutai explains. "It is very difficult."
Her struggle is the kind that often makes headlines out of central and southern Africa. That's where a mixture of folklore and evangelical Christianity in some communities has spawned a fundamentalist belief in witchcraft and possession by evil spirits, one that's blurring the line between traditional medicine and extreme religion throughout the entire continent.
But assertions by the UN and others about the rampant presence of witchcraft in Africa are often sensationalized. That's because much of what the West calls witchcraft is actually just the u ... |
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