Sorcery Accusation Related Violence: Fighting the Wildfire of SARV

This seminar outlines some of the main findings of the project ‘Improving the Impact of State and Non-State Interventions in Overcoming Sorcery Accusation Related Violence (SARV) in Papua New Guinea (PNG)’. The research was a collaboration between the Australian National University, Divine Word University, the PNG National Research Institute and a network of local research assistants. It establishes baseline markers about how significant a problem SARV is and what diverse and extensive forms of harm it generates. SARV is implicated in a range of negative developmental outcomes, including economic disempowerment, poor health, insecurity, persecution, and violence, including torture and murder.