Sorcery accuser jailed in landmark PNG case after victim hacked to death

The conviction of James Mon has been hailed as an important legal victory in a country where sorcery accusations have been spiralling out of control.

Lorna Nico, a mother of five from Bulolo in northern Morobe Province, was murdered after being accused of sorcery.

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A Papua New Guinea court has convicted and sentenced a man to jail for accusing a woman of ­sorcery who was later murdered by a lynch mob – a landmark ruling in a country where such ­allegations and related violence are spiralling.

Lorna Nico, a mother of five from Bulolo in northern Morobe Province, was chased by a group of men in August 2023, beaten, tortured and hacked to pieces in front of her eight-year-old daughter after James Mon ­accused her of sorcery.

Mon, who was not present at Nico’s murder, was sentenced to five years’ jail by the Bulolo ­National Court last month – the first person in PNG to ever be found guilty of making sorcery accusations under legislation passed by the country’s parliament in 2022.

The Glasman Act, as it is known, criminalises the act of ­accusing someone of sorcery, even if no physical harm occurs. It imposes sentences of up to 10 years’ jail and a maximum fine of more than $4000 for those found guilty.

A Glasman or Glasmeri (woman) is a so-called “prayer warrior” or diviner, sometimes ­attached to an evangelical church, who is called into a village to confirm the presence of a witch or sorcerer – often in the wake of a death or adverse event.

While such figures have historically been present in certain parts of PNG, they have spread rapidly in more recent years to areas where there is no cultural history of such practices.

Data compiled by the PNG Tribal Foundation, a non-profit organisation which pursued the case against Mon, estimates as many as 700 people are tortured or killed each year in the Pacific nation due to sorcery accusations.

“These people called Glasman and Glasmeris come into a community and say; ‘I’ve gotten ­special training and I can see who is a sorcerer in your community. So, if you pay me, I will identify them so that you can handle them,” foundation founder and president Gary Bustin told Benar News this week.

Seven perpetrators have been convicted under the Glasman Act in the past two years, with ­sentences ranging from five to 25 years in prison, but Mon’s conviction is the first for accusing someone of being a sorcerer, Mr Bustin added. Sorcery claims are levelled at both men and women in PNG, though most of the victims are ­females who are often gang raped, beaten and tortured with hot iron bars before being killed.

“The youngest person known to have been killed as a result of sorcery accusations in PNG was a five-year-old girl who was raped before she was murdered,” East Sepik Governor Allan Bird, who sponsored the Glasman bill, told parliament this week in the wake of Mon’s conviction.

Mr Bird said of 18,000 cases of violence against women and children recorded every year in PNG, only 200 were prosecuted annually, and much more needed to be done to combat it.

“One of the things that came through from all the consultations that we had with the public is that the main cause of perpetrators being encouraged to continue to perpetuate violence is because we are a violent, lawless nation,” he said.

Miranda Forsyth, an ANU academic who has spent years ­researching sorcery accusation related violence (SARV), said ­accusations of witchcraft were rising worldwide but occurred at particularly alarming rates in PNG amid rising inequality, and deteriorating education and health services.

Professor Forsyth said she hoped the landmark PNG ruling would have a deterrent effect but more needed to be done to ­address such extreme human rights abuses. “This is not cultural but a result of the pressures of modernity causing people to be ­extremely violent,” she told The Australian, adding there were often local jealousies underlying the accusations.

“What’s great about this (conviction) is it is being publicly ­lauded, so hopefully it will start sending a message.”

A 2021 study by Professor Forsyth and Anton Luyz found 98 per cent of SARV cases – 1440 torture crimes and 600 murders – went unprosecuted, and most of those that were involved a male victim and a charge of murder.

A more recent study described SARV as a “systemic … and contagious phenomenon”. Pope Francis alluded to the issue in his visit to PNG in September when he called for people “to drive out fear, superstition and magic from people’s hearts”.

Last month Prime Minister James Marape condemned all ­violence against women, including sorcery-related killings, as an affront to PNG culture.