Miranda Forsyth How can harmful practices related to beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery be regulated?

Miranda Forsyth How can harmful practices related to beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery be regulated?, Thursday, May 16th 2024, 11.00 CET; 12.00 Jerusalem; 20.00 AEDT
For most people in the Global North, such a question might seem of esoteric interest at best. However, there are two levels of reasons why the topic should be of broad interest. First, in fact violence and stigmatisation related to these beliefs is a significant and extreme form of human rights abuse in many countries across the globe today, as acknowledged in 2021 in the recent UN Human Rights Declaration on the topic. Further, this abuse is not just occurring in the Global South. For example, in the U.K., where these cases have started to be officially recognised, authorities document thousands of cases of child abuse linked to belief in witchcraft each year. It is a form of abuse that has been routinely overlooked by authorities across the world, leaving the work of protecting the vulnerable, and caring for survivors, to community leaders, tiny NGOs, and caring friends and neighbours. The second reason the issue should be of broad interest is a conceptual one. This is because regulation in this requires engagement with what I term “worldview pluralism” in ways that may also be relevant for issues such as scapegoating, misinformation, conspiracy thinking and extremism.
Miranda Forsyth is a Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet at Australian National Uuniversity (Canberra). Miranda is the author of A Bird that Flies with Two Wings: Kastom and State Justice Systems in Vanuatu (2009) and co-author of Weaving Intellectual Property Policy in Small island Developing States (2015), She works on how people’s diverse justice needs can best be met in contexts of multiple legal and normative orders. Current research projects focussing on the Pacific include the potential of Restorative Justice for the Pacific islands region, particularly in relation to gender based violence; the promise and challenges of Community Rule-Making as regulatory innovation; and a multi-year project on overcoming sorcery accusation related violence in Papua New Guinea.
Miranda is also working on the development of a new agenda for Environmental Restorative Justice in both Australia and internationally.