The accusation of elderly women as witches in Nigeria

The research draws on the feminist approach to witchcraft accusations and employs the con-cepts of power and intersectionality in exploring the causes of witchcraft accusations and persecutions and the social and economic effects on the lives of elderly women in the Otta community in Nigeria. Mostly elderly women with poor economic backgrounds and low social status in the community became the main targets of witch hunts and persecutions in the community. From this, I have argued that poor socio-economic status of the women, their age, gen-der, coupled with the social and economic inequalities in the country and the study areas creates room for people to target and accused the elderly women as witches. In so doing the accusers blame the women for social happenings, hardships, and failures in the society. This situation tends to impact negatively on the social and economic lives of the elderly women and the progress of the country at large. The socio-economic effects on the women are seen in terms of long-term marginalization, stigmatization and discrimination of the women, psy-chological trauma, displacement of the women, as well as the loss of properties, loss of their means of income which is important for their livelihoods and retards economic progress and development.