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The Why Factor: Witches

Witches

18/12/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - The Why Factor, Witches

Why do so many societies demonise women by branding them witches?

Why have so many women in different cultures and eras been denounced as witches? And why does the idea of a dangerous woman with supernatural powers persist all over the world?

Why have so many women in so many different cultures and eras been denounced as witches? BBC Africa’s Sammy Awami visits a village in his home country of Tanzania where, just four months ago, five women were murdered after being accused of witchcraft. Sammy meets a witch doctor who believes he has met a witch and talks to a local politician who is trying to stop the killings. We also hear from Professor Dianne Purkiss, an expert on the European witch hunts of the Early Modern period. And he travels to Glastonbury in the South West of England to meets a modern-day witch, Liz Williams, owner of the Cat and Cauldron witchcraft shop.

(Image: Villagers in N. Tanzania where people have been accused of being witches, Credit: Sammy Awami/BBC)

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