Witch hunts are a contemporary phenomenon occurring globally, with notable occurrences in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea.
[8] From Cameroon, Robert Brain and Peter Geschiere delivered ethnographic accounts on a child-witchcraft scare that tended to remain largely peacefully.
[11] In 2017, it was reported that the Cameroonian President Paul Biya had urged citizens to use witchcraft as a means of combatting Boko Haram.
[12] In March 2009, Amnesty International reported that up to 1,000 people in Gambia had been abducted by government-sponsored "witch doctors" on charges of witchcraft, and taken to detention centers where they were forced to drink a poisonous concoction at gunpoint, known as kubejaro.
The president continued a series of "witch hunts" over the next seven years, in which rural villagers experienced beatings, kidnappings, and forced confessions (after the ingestion of kubejaro, which often made the victims extremely weak or unconscious).
They then serve as sites for traditional exorcisms, that involve a chicken-ordeal to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused person and a concoction to cleanse the supposed witchcraft-power.
[citation needed] In the southern parts of Ghana as in its urban areas witch-hunting as mass-violence occurs, but far less frequent than in the Northern Regions.
In general, witchcraft accusations in Southern Ghana today tend to stay rather peaceful or at least quiet, leading to social isolation of a person.
As much as 93% of the population believe in magic and witchcraft, and witchdoctors play an important role in society as healers, and everyday helpers, with as much as 100,000 registered in the county's healthcare system protocols.
Incidents of abductions, maimings and even bestial killings by witchdoctors and their helpers, are regularly experienced in Tanzania, where human body parts are used in some witchcraft rituals or as magical charms.
[27] Audrey I. Richards, in the journal Africa, relates in 1935 an instance when a new wave of witchfinders, the Bamucapi, appeared in the villages of the Bemba people of Zambia.
[43] In India, labeling a woman as a witch is a common ploy to grab land, settle scores or even to punish her for turning down sexual advances.
In a majority of the cases, it is difficult for the accused woman to reach out for help and she is forced to either abandon her home and family or driven to commit suicide.
Less than 2 percent of those accused of witch-hunting are actually convicted, according to a study by the Free Legal Aid Committee, a group that works with victims in the state of Jharkhand.
[47] It is unclear if superstition and genuine fear of sorcery is the motivating factor in these incidents, or the prospect of grabbing victims' possessions and property is more important.
[48] The law and penal code of Indonesia does not encompass magic or the supernatural, but there has been public pressure and debate about including it since at least 1981, hoping to outlaw witches and witchcraft.
[51] In 2010, Sarwa Dev Prasad Ojha, Minister for Women and Social Welfare, said, "Superstitions are deeply rooted in our society, and the belief in witchcraft is one of the worst forms of this.
[54] Helen Hakena, chairwoman of the North Bougainville Human Rights Committee, said that the accusations started because of economic jealousy born of a mining boom.
[54] Reports by UN agencies, Amnesty International, Oxfam and anthropologists show that "attacks on accused sorcerers and witches—sometimes men, but most commonly women—are frequent, ferocious and often fatal.
"[55] One woman who was attacked by young men from a nearby village "had her genitals burned and fused beyond functional repair by the repeated intrusions of red-hot irons.
Neil L. Whitehead and Robin Wright presented a collection of essays on witch-hunts among native tribes in the amazon high- and lowlands.
While prevalent in many tribes, especially child-witch-hunts among Ashaninka have attracted interest and raised questions about methodological strategies in reporting abusive practices in an already biased environment.
In November 2009, it was reported that 118 persons had been arrested in the province of Makkah that year for practising magic and "using the Book of Allah in a derogatory manner", 74% of them being female.
[59] According to Human Rights Watch in 2009, prosecutions for witchcraft and sorcery are proliferating and "Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police.
"[60] In 2006, an illiterate Saudi woman, Fawza Falih, was convicted of practising witchcraft, including casting an impotence spell, and sentenced to death by beheading, after allegedly being beaten and forced to fingerprint a false confession that had not been read to her.
[62] In 2007, Mustafa Ibrahim, an Egyptian national, was executed, having been convicted of using sorcery in an attempt to separate a married couple, as well as of adultery and of desecrating the Quran.
[64] In 2009, Ali Sibat, a Lebanese television presenter who had been arrested whilst on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to death for witchcraft arising out of his fortune-telling on an Arab satellite channel.
[65] His appeal was accepted by one court, but a second in Medina upheld his death sentence again in March 2010, stating that he deserved it as he had publicly practised sorcery in front of millions of viewers for several years.
[67] On 12 December 2011, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was beheaded in Al Jawf Province after being convicted of practicing witchcraft and sorcery.