Kalli Biswokarma was tortured by neighbors in her village in Nepal for two days and forced to eat human waste before she finally gave in and confessed to practising witchcraft.
Those who beat, punched and kicked the 47-year-old mother of one accused her of casting evil spells on a schoolteacher who had fallen ill.
“I was victimized because I am a poor woman,” said Biswokarma, who belongs to the Dalit community — the “untouchables” on the lowest rung of Nepal’s rigid Hindu caste hierarchy.
“Around 35 people came to my home and took me away. They trapped me in a cow shed and forced me to eat feces and drink urine,” she said in Pyutar village, 40km south of Kathmandu. “The next day they cut my skin with blades. I could not bear the torture and I confessed to being a witch just to save my life.”
HUNDREDS YEARLY
Hundreds of Dalit women are thought to suffer a similar ordeal every year in Nepal, where superstition and caste-based discrimination remain rife and most communities still operate on strict patriarchal lines.
Rights campaigners say the perpetrators of such crimes are rarely brought to justice, with police viewing them as matters for the community to sort out itself.
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has pronounced an end to violence against women this year as Nepal makes the transformation from traditional Hindu monarchy to modern secular state.
But authorities admit they face an uphill struggle.
“Superstitions are deeply rooted in our society, and the belief in witchcraft is one of the worst forms of this,” said Sarwa Dev Prasad Ojha, minister for women and social welfare. “Such traditional practices cannot be wiped away overnight.”
The Women’s Rehabilitation Center (WOREC) says it has documented at least 82 cases in two years in which women who were tortured by neighbors on charges of witchcraft.
Nepalese law prohibits violence against women, but Dahal said it was rarely enforced, particularly when the victims were from marginalized groups.
‘NATIONAL SHAME’
Nainakala Thapa, head of the government’s National Women’s Commission, called the practice a “national shame.”
“Women who belong to low-caste groups are made scapegoats because they cannot defend themselves,” Thapa said.
Thapa said that when a person dies or falls sick it is often spiritual healers who are the first to make accusations of witchcraft.
“It is easy to identify a low-caste woman and brand her a witch,” she said.
For Biswokarma and her family, now back in their home village after a stay in a women’s refuge in Kathmandu, the stigma persists.
“I am still afraid because some of the people who tortured me are still in the village,” she said. “I have lost my dignity, but I have not given up hope. I will fight for justice.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS