Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s recent dismissal of Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado as a “demonic witch” reverberates beyond mere political rhetoric. While intended as a crude slur to discredit an opponent, this loaded term inadvertently illuminates a darker, more enduring global tragedy: the ongoing persecution and murder of individuals—overwhelmingly women—accused of witchcraft and sorcery.
In a world preoccupied by geopolitical struggles, the suffering of those targeted by such accusations often remains a silent crisis. It is a chilling testament to how ancient fears, particularly those aimed at controlling women, persist in our modern age. The label of “witch” has been weaponised for centuries to marginalise, disempower, and eliminate perceived threats. Today, while the context may be a political rally, the dehumanising language echoes the same sentiment that fuels violence in villages and communities across the globe.
According to the United Nations and human rights organisations like Amnesty International, this is a grave and active violation of human rights. A 2020 UN report estimated that between 2009 and 2019 alone, at least 20,000 people were killed in connection with witch hunts across 60 countries. This modern toll, shockingly, rivals the estimated 35,000 to 60,000 executions that occurred over three centuries during the infamous European witch trials.
The primary targets of this violence, then and now, are overwhelmingly women, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities—the most vulnerable members of society. This violence is not a relic confined to a single culture or region but a global tapestry woven from threads of fear, misogyny, and social stress.
In Saudi Arabia, for example, state-sanctioned executions for “sorcery” have occurred, with the tragic beheading of a woman in 2011 serving as a stark reminder of how judicial systems can enforce, rather than protect from, these deadly beliefs. In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and places like Papua New Guinea, the threat is not from the state but from the community itself, where extrajudicial killings and brutal acts of vigilante justice are used to explain away misfortune, illness, or economic hardship. Women are often scapegoated for societal ills, their autonomy and wisdom recast as a malevolent power that must be extinguished.
This phenomenon is not about “primitive” societies; it is a human one, born from the breakdown of social trust and the desperate search for simple answers to complex problems.
Herein lies the devastating parallel to our own modern political discourse. The mechanism used to condemn a woman in a village is tragically the same one used to rally nations against a common foe: identify an ‘other,’ assign them blame for our fears, and consolidate power by uniting against a perceived enemy. The dehumanising language used by those in power, whether directed at a female political rival or an entire populace, systematically erodes the empathy required for a just and peaceful society. It is a deliberate tactic to create fear for the sake of control, discarding the most fundamental paternal and maternal instincts to care for and protect the vulnerable.
In a world teetering on the edge of multiple conflicts, where the rhetoric of “us versus them” grows louder by the day, we cannot afford to ignore these connections. The path away from such violence—be it in a remote community or on the world stage—begins with a conscious rejection of demonisation. It requires the painstaking work of rebuilding trust, upholding fair legal systems that protect the human rights of every individual, and recognising our shared humanity.
The struggle for women’s rights in Venezuela, the fight for justice for a victim of a witch hunt in Africa, and the global call for diplomacy over conflict are not separate issues. They are all part of the same essential human project: to choose compassion over fear, understanding over prejudice, and to build a world where no one is condemned by the shadows of our words.