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A young mother was burned alive in Papua New Guinea this week after townspeople accused her of being a witch.
According to multiple reports, Kepari Leniata, 20, was tortured and killed in front of a mob of hundreds in the town of Mount Hagen. The woman, stripped naked and covered in gasoline, was burned alive on a pile of trash by relatives of a young boy who had died earlier in the week. The relatives had accused Leniata of killing him with sorcery.
Police and firefighters who tried to save Leniata were chased away by an overwhelming crowd.
Agence France-Press writes that the woman "admitted to killing the boy,
who died after being [hospitalized] with stomach and chest pains on
Tuesday."
A photo taken on Feb. 6 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. According to the Post-Courier newspaper she was torched by
villagers who claimed she killed a 6-year-old boy through sorcery, with
police outnumbered by onlookers and unable to intervene. (AFP / Getty
Images)
According to the BBC, police chief Supt Kaiglo Ambane told local media that those responsible for Leniata's murder would be brought to justice.
The U.S. Embassy and Australia's high commissioner have condemned the
murder. In a statement featured in a report by the Australian
Associated Press, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said
that "no one commits such a despicable act."
"Barbaric killings connected with alleged sorcery. Violence against
women because of this belief that sorcery kills," O'Neill said,
according to the AAP. "These are becoming all too common in certain
parts of the country. It is reprehensible that women, the old and the
weak in our society should be targeted for alleged sorcery or wrongs
that they actually have nothing to do with."
AFP notes that many people in the island nation believe in sorcery
rather than accept natural causes of death. While the 1971 Sorcery Act
technically outlaws the burning of alleged witches, the practice
persists. In 2009, another woman was burned alive for alleged sorcery,
the news outlet points out.
In a 2009 blog for The Huffington Post, Zama Coursen-Neff, the
director of Human Rights Watch's Children's Rights Division, said that
that this incident and other similar killings have become indicative a larger, more troubling trend.
She wrote:
In Papua New Guinea, research indicates, two-thirds of women experience domestic violence, and 50 percent of women have experienced forced sex. The Australian development agency AUSAID just issued a new report identifying violence against women as a major barrier to Papua New Guinea's development.
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