[Jesse Irie: My name is Jessie Irie. I am from the Eagle clan and, Cockatoo clan here in Papua New Guinea.
Esther Silas: My name is Esther Silas. I come from the Eastern Highlands.
Silas: We know the cultural beliefs and also the approaches that can change the community.
Irie: One of the beliefs is in sanguma–is in witchcraft, sorcery and poison men and poison women. They are used interchangeably.
Silas: Sorcery and sanguma beliefs deeply rooted in our cultural beliefs. So everyone, whoever’s family member dies or somebody else in the community dies of a disease or a sickness everyone still blames or says it’s an attack from a sanguma or a sorcery because of cultural beliefs, and only a few know that it’s because of the sickness or illness.
Crowd: [Singing and drumming]
Silas: Sanguma is directly related to gender based violence because in sanguma cases, most women have been accused. Most of the mothers and women in the community, their life is at risk when they have been accused because they knew that if anyone dies in the community, then they might lose their life. They might also die.
Related on the SLP
Silas (tape): You don’t need to get rid of the beliefs, but It depends on individuals, how they manage their, their beliefs.
…
Silas: There is a workshop approach that we use in the community and it’s called community led total sanitation. And it addresses all the preventable diseases and even the hygiene and sanitation facilities in the community.
Lope Pikuri (tape): Flytrap. [Speaks in Tok Pisin]
Silas: After the training to check the understanding, we ask participants for their feedback and most participants’ feedback is: “We can be able to prevent ourselves from getting sick rather than accusing sanguma and sorcerers, saying that we are dying because of the sanguma.”
