AYIVU COUNTY MP DRAFTS BILL TO BAN WITCHDOCTORS

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Ayivu County MP Bernard Atiku revealed that he has prepared a Private Members Bill that seeks to address issues of human sacrifice and other harmful practices.

A new bill seeks to ban the activities of witchdoctors that are blamed for the rising cases of human sacrifice.

Atiku who is also the chairman of Uganda parliamentary forum for children noted that If one is to follow cases that concern human sacrifice in this country, all of them have been associated with witchcraft.

He added that shrines serve as a place where people go to consult witchdoctors or they are used to slaughter children.

He however said that there are fears that attempting to ban shrines might violate peoples freedom of worship but if its a religious shrine, there must be standards.

He was speaking during a consultative meeting at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala on Wednesday.

Mr Atiku said although the witchcraft Act prohibits the practice of ritual sacrifices that endanger or have the capacity to take away human life, the law is too inadequate to deal with the problem of human sacrifice.

However some local leaders said there should be a cleardistinctionbetween traditional healers, herbalists and witchdoctors. They also called for a clear definition of witchcraft to ease monitoring.

Mathias Kigongo, Buikwe district chairman stressed that they should use universities in the country todo researchand distinguish between traditional healers and witchdoctorsadding that some of the witchdoctors pretend to be traditional healers during the day and [become] witchdoctors at night.

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