Introduction

The phenomenon of Sorcery Accusation-Related Violence (SARV) has reigned terror in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for decades—creating a climate of fear and instability. Initially known as Sorcery Violence, the term SARV highlights the innocence of its victims by referring to how violence is enacted based on accusations of sorcery (Post-Courier Contributor & postcourieronline, 2024).

Today, victims of SARV are evenly distributed between men and women (UNFPA Papua New Guinea, 2024) with 1,896 reported deaths occurring between 2018 and 2022 (Forsyth et al., 2024). Yet, these figures only represent the tip of the iceberg as ‘only eight per cent of violent incidents and 17 per cent of incidents leading to death are captured in national media’ (Forsyth et al., 2026). Out of fear of retaliation, victims are reluctant to report incidents of SARV to authorities.

PNG’s authorities have addressed SARV to varying degrees. Whilst PNG’s government has established policies to address the issue, they remain widely unfunded and unenforced. This implementation gap has resulted in civil society organisations working to support victims. Furthermore, with the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary enlisting the help of these organisations in tackling SARV, it signifies how civil society organisations play a central role in government efforts to eradicate the issue.

Understanding why SARV continues to persist today requires answering one central question: why aren’t PNG’s authorities doing more to prevent murder from being normalised?

Sanguma, Sorcery and Evil Spirits

Following the death of an elderly man in the Wenaiyo village in July of 2026, accusations of sorcery were posed against his four bereaved family members. These victims would be held captive and tortured using weapons for several days—leaving them with severe burn scars. Whilst the Seventh-day Adventist Church was able to evacuate three victims and bring them to the Kundiawa hospital for treatment, one family member was left stranded in the village with a need for urgent medical attention. Due to its remote location, it would have taken several days for the police to trek up there. In fear of a fatality and a need for decisive action, a police helicopter was used to evacuate the final victim—becoming the first SARV case to utilise an emergency airlift.

Instances of SARV revolve around the framing of certain community members, especially the bereaved, as evil sanguma killers. Rooted in the colonial era, the term describes a ‘practice of sorcery or witchcraft’ (Gesch, 2015, p. 111) or an evil spirit that compels people to ‘inflict illness or death upon others’ (Cao, 2024, p. 427). These beliefs in sanguma have subsequently led to a reliance on glasman/glasmeri—a diviner who claims to have the ability to ‘identify either the existence of sorcery in relation to a particular incident, or the actual identification of individuals as having used magic’ (Forsyth et al, 2021a, p. 3). With sorcery being understood as an inherently malevolent practice, these beliefs have contributed to a lingering state of unease as people—especially women and children who are the main victims of SARV—question their safety in today’s PNG (Eves, 2013; Gesch, 2015). Addressing the root of SARV thus requires a consideration of the entrenched beliefs in sanguma as a central cause for the perpetuation of violence.

Why Criminalisation Isn’t Enough

Emerging in the colonial context, witchcraft was first acknowledged through the 1971 Sorcery Act. Inherited from Australia, the act reduced sentences for anyone committing violence on the pretense that their victim had been committing acts of sorcery. This subsequently legitimised beliefs in sorcery and sanguma—enabling them to become ingrained in Papua New Guinean society.

Within PNG’s Criminal Code (1974), SARV is not explicitly criminalised by law. In Article 409 of the Criminal Code, only the practice of pretending to ‘exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration’ is punishable as a misdemeanour (Criminal Code 1974). The fact that the act of practising sorcery was seen as more detrimental to society than the perpetration of violence against a presumed sorcerer signifies how cultural beliefs are intertwined with the legal system.

In consequence of the lack of legal provisions for instances of SARV, the government would make two key amendments to PNG’s Criminal Code. The first amendment (2013) resulted in the repeal of the 1971 Sorcery Act, reframing sorcery-related killings as a strict form of willful murder (Amnesty International, 2013). Following this, perpetrators of SARV were held fully accountable for their acts of violence—making beliefs in sanguma irrelevant in prosecutions. Whilst this amendment would allow for capital punishment to be enacted against perpetrators, it had not been used by the government since 1954 (Sakai, 2022).

The second amendment would occur in 2022 through what is colloquially referred to as the Glassman Bill. Resulting in the official criminalisation of false sorcery accusations, the amendment would allow for the conviction of those claiming to be a glasman/glasmeri and further punish any intentional interactions made by citizens with them. Whilst significant in theory, the bill is limited in practice by how sorcery involves ‘the use of supernatural power and spiritual beings’, it is unable to be observed (Cao, 2024, p. 429). Consequently, this makes it impossible to prove that any accusation is true or that it is false. Thus, the question of criminalising false accusations becomes a grey area in which legislating the Criminal Code and its amendments is subject to each person’s interpretations of how an accusation can be deemed as true.

To better address the realities of SARV, the government launched the Sorcery Accusation Related Violence National Action Plan (SARV NAP) in 2025. Endorsed by the National Executive Council, it aims to establish a strong safehouse network, increase community awareness and implement restorative interventions. However, the plan has already garnered significant criticism for its limited institutional coordination. Throughout PNG’s different provinces, the lack of a ‘functional, multi-agency SARV response task force’ has led to different government actors addressing the situation independently (Divine Word University & UNFPA Papua New Guinea, 2025, p. 19). To add on, the fact that the national budget of PNG shows that the plan has never had funding allocated towards it raises the question of how far do authorities actually care about an issue resulting in trauma and fear being spread across the whole nation. Considering how nine out of ten Papua New Guineans believe that the government is not doing enough to address the SARV epidemic, it emphasises how the actions of authorities thus far are insufficient at addressing the ongoing violence (Ewart, 2026).

Social Media: The Public’s Call for Action?

Lynching and extrajudicial violence against SARV victims is nothing new. Women, who are more susceptible to being accused of sorcery, have been publicly stripped naked, burned with iron rods and doused in petrol before being burned alive (Orrell, 2021; UNFPA Papua New Guinea, 2025). United in their fight against sanguma, local communities continue to use these methods to condemn sorcery and create fear for the repercussions of using it to any extent.

With the rise of social media, a new conceptualisation of extrajudicial violence can be observed. On platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook, graphic videos and images are being shared online by their perpetrators (Forsyth et al., 2026). It is through these public posts as well as public and private group chat discussions that 75% of Papua New Guineans are informed about SARV through social media (Melanesian Institute, 2026). On the one hand, the sharing of these graphic images can be understood as the perpetrators’ attempt to discourage acts of sorcery at a country-wide level. By sharing videos of themselves torturing victims, they aim to create a climate of fear where sorcery is not enacted out of fear of the violent repercussions. Nevertheless, the sharing of these videos has also led to a promotion and normalisation of violence, especially when considering how widely used these platforms are across PNG.

To build upon the findings of Forsyth et al.’s study (2026) which was conducted during 2013 to 2024, I chose to conduct my own study on Facebook to better understand whether patterns from their analysis are still present in PNG forums today. By searching for posts centred on SARV and sanguma in PNG, I discovered a central metaphorical theme surrounding wildness. This is encapsulated in how one user described PNG’s current state as an ‘animal kingdom’. This quotation, alongside others I found, hence signifies how discourse surrounding SARV has negatively framed PNG society through the portrayal of violence as pervasive—shaping society and cultural beliefs.

A Reflection on the Future of SARV

To advocate for the erasure of sanguma is to advocate for the erasure of PNG’s culture. Sorcery is deeply intertwined in the nation’s history with conceptions of sanguma being passed down from generation to generation. Whilst legal reforms can continue to address the issue, the complete eradication of sorcery is near impossible in consequence of these ingrained beliefs (Forsyth et al., 2026). Nevertheless, SARV must continue to be condemned as violence can never be justified through cultural nor religious means.

In response to the limited actions of authorities, the Papua New Guinea Tribal Foundation developed the SARV Accountability Model (Papua New Guinea Tribal Foundation, 2026). Aiming to eradicate SARV, the foundation emphasised three main pillars needed to achieve this: the Glassman Bill, the enforcement of said bill and community awareness. To achieve this accountability, organisations like the Papua New Guinea Tribal Foundation have begun working with authorities to prosecute perpetrators of SARV. Nevertheless, the lack of funding in these organisations have limited their ability to enforce the law especially when it’s the responsibility of the government to allocate sufficient funding. If PNG’s authorities continue to rely on civil society alone to resolve the issue, no progress on SARV nor the normalisation of violence will be able to occur.

In consideration of its actions so far, the government needs to establish a SARV-centred task force to prevent the continuation of government agencies acting independently. Acting as a liaison between different government agencies and coordinator on issues pertaining to SARV, the task force will ensure continuous action on eradicating SARV through the following three actions.

First of all, rapid responses to alerts of violence will be ensured through coordination with other government agencies. To prevent violence from becoming normalised in PNG, the SARV task force will work at ensuring cooperation amongst authorities by clearly establishing how a SARV case should be addressed. With the task force as the first point of reference for SARV cases, they will be able to connect victims with the police force (which should be prepared to address a case at any given moment) and a safe house which they will be escorted to. As seen in the Wenaiyo village case, coordination with the police force is essential to ensure rapid evacuations of victims. Hence, by ensuring that there is a task force leading the efforts to address these cases, it will ensure for more comprehensive action on the matter.

Secondly, a comprehensive support system should be established to support victims in both the short-term and long-term. Notably, safe houses should be made accessible across all of its 22 provincial-level divisions to ensure that victims have access to a preliminary support mechanism immediately following the violence. These safe houses should contain medical supplies and an on-call mental health counsellor to help victims overcome the physical and psychological trauma. In the long term perspective, the task force should further provide support groups through which victims can discuss their experiences with SARV. This will not only allow them to share coping mechanisms, but also provide them with  a greater sense of community.

Finally, to prevent the erasure of PNG’s culture, discussions of sorcery should be compulsory during secondary school. By implementing mandatory discussions every two years (in Grades 7, 9 and 11), it will allow for teenagers to better understand why sorcery-related accusations and murders are only causing society’s harm and instability. These frequent discussions will ensure that knowledge on SARV and sanguma persists—allowing for the issue to be addressed with the urgency that it demands. To further ensure that these discussions are also reaching those perpetuating the violence, information sessions centred on sanguma’s role in PNG’s society should be conducted at least once a year within each provincial-level division.

Many cases of SARV have gone undiscovered and unaddressed by authorities, with victims also lacking trust in the government’s ability to help them. In today’s PNG, the greatest attempts to achieve justice are being led by civil society and non-governmental organisations. Addressing the views of Papua New Guineans on sanguma is important in enacting change. Yet, it is the legal system and its enforcement authorities which needs to enforce better governance on SARV.