The Rights of The Wicked: The Hurdles of Protecting Witchcraft Accusation & Persecution Victims Within South Africa's Legal System

Abstract

In the 21st century, human race fail to realize that there are still problems emerging from ancient beliefs that have continued to be believed by various tribes in the world leading to persecution of children and other minorities who’s associated with black magic and occult power. Cases like this often occur with no recognition by the wider community because of the “vigilante" culture with accusations that is related with black magic. This article tries to give an idea of this phenomenon through various aspects (both social and legal) that hampered the State’s ability to protect Accusation and Persecution (WAP) Victims. The discussion would be divided into parts that include 1) The beliefs of this concept held in Africa 2) The socioeconomic factor that are believed to be stimulants for the occurrence of related phenomena and 3) Legal perspective (by using the example from South Africa) that include the conflict between customary law and codified laws that is both recognized within the South African Constitutions as well as the issue of cultural defense and extenuating circumstances in legal proceedings. Lastly, there’s also a discussion of the role of African Court of Human Rights (ACHR) within this matter, and the writer hopes that this would enlighten the reader about the complexities of this particular human rights issue.