Kepari Leniata
www.ericlafforgue.com
Kepari Leniata. A beautiful 20 year old woman with a healthy, velvet like complection, and a beautiful white flower in her dark, wavy hair. Her large, dark eyes lit up this picture along with her megawatt smile. She looked to be so full of hope for herself and her children.
Notice I am writing about Kepari using the past participal.
SHE’S DEAD
A victim of mob violence resulting from her being wrongfully accused of “witchcraft.”
Kepari was born January 4th 1993 at Papua New Guinea, a poor, tribal nation lacking in healthcare and education.
Kepari evidently married young and had two children.
Her youngest child, an 8 month old daughter who would be accused of the same crime as her mother in 2017.
A young boy who lived nearby became seriously ill on Tuesday, February 5, 2012 with severe cramps and chest pains. His frantic parents rushed him to Mount Hagen Hospital where he sadly died a few hours later.
Lately Manoa
One might wonder about the final diagnosis. Did he receive decent care?
No matter. His parents concluded that he died from sorcery.
THE RELATIVES AGREED.
The belief in these tribal communities which lack scientific education is that the sudden death of a person is caused by another practicing the type of magic which calls on the aid of evil spirits to control the outcome of a situation.
One can gather that some family members had suspicions that two women were first accused by the boy’s family. They brought the women to a designated area at Mount Hagen, tied them to poles and were ready to burn them when the police arrived.
It isn’t known how the women escaped.
Did the police free them? Or did the police back down due to an unequal balance of mob force while others snuck in to help the women?
Either way, they ran into the jungle where they were soon found.
They admitted to sorcery, but that they were not involved in anyway in the poor boy’s death.
Probably being questioned under torture, the women named Kepari Leniata as the “witch” who used sorcery to kill the boy.
The family, AKA the mob, turned on their heels and went to where Kepari lived. They grabbed Kepari from her hut, stripped her naked and burned her with a hot iron.
Kepari was dragged through the streets to the local landfill, bound and thrown on a pile of trash. She viciously screamed as the mob burned her alive while police and onlookers watched supposedly helpless against the angry mob.
It doesn’t seem that justice was served for Kepari Leniata. I don’t see evidence that anyone has paid for this
bold, vicious, evil crime.
There was not an established court in 2013 to deal with sorcery allegations. Therefore, villagers sought vigilante justice amongst each other.
However, cries from other agencies were heard.
The U.S. Embassy issued a statement calling for countries to work together to intensly improve anti-gender-based-violence laws throughout the Pacific.
Amnesty International issued a statement that the local authorities failed Kepari Leniata adding the punishment of beating women accused of sorcery was an excuse to excercise complete control over them.
However, Kepari’s legacy lives on in hope. Part 2 will be regarding the angel who stepped in to save her daughter all the while risking their own life.
Mediocrity Abena Talks Habib Rehman Margaret Gleeson Stephen Payne Floyd Mori Justiss Goode @Loren Kantor Noorie Brooklyn Muse Jason Provencio Trisha Faye Jeanne Newstrom David Williams Patricia Bruhn Busy💎Sumo Lisa Robertson Anna Lucille Mello Maximilian G. Wolf Ujjwal Singh Gabriel Hearst Mohd Saqib Lakeshia Felton Ahmad Suhaeil Donna Rayne Sam Maloney
