Nepal Addresses the Witch Hunts

As a counter-point to the Saudi Arabia article I posted earlier this morning, the country of Nepal, as part of the U.N.’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (That’s today!) and the White Ribbon campaign to end violence against women, has launched a one-month media campaign to end witch-hunts against women in Nepal.

“…the Office of the Prime Minister and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR) have jointly launched a one minute television clip highlighting the violence against women who are alleged to be practicing witchcraft.  A one-minute clip will be broadcast from the state-controlled Nepal Television just before the prime news at 8pm every day for the next one month. OHCHR and the PM’s office decided to air such video as a large number of women alleged to be practicing witchcraft mostly in the rural Terai have been ill-treated, tortured, brutally beaten up, and forced to eat human excreta.”

This is a big step, and should hopefully start a larger trend of governments taking the international witch-hunting epidemic seriously (Nepal is also taking part in the 2010 international initiative against violence towards women). It seems only natural that a country that honors “living goddesses” should concern itself with the welfare and safety of its women. If you’d like to thank Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal for addressing this issue, you can contact the Nepalese government, here.