45-year-old woman of Paraguay burnt alive on charges of sorcery

45-year-old Adolfina Ocampos, belonging to the Mbya Guarani indigenous community, was sentenced to death in Paraguay. As per reports, she was accused of being a witch and was tied to a wooden pole, shot with arrows and then burned alive.
The "execution" was described as "out of the ordinary" and "isolated" by an expert in spite of a UN report that has claimed that thousands of people worldwide are accused of being witches every year. Such women are often abused, cast out from their families and communities and sometimes killed.
Incidentally, in this particular incident, nine men in the village of Tahehyi, 180 miles north of the capital Asuncion, have been charged with first-degree murder – they have admitted their involvement in this sordid killing.
In a recent similar incident in India, a woman was killed by relatives who suspected her of practicing witchcraft. The woman Dukalheen Bai died after she was stripped, beaten and tortured for hours by her brother-in-law along with other family members. The accusations against her were that she had made her brother-in-law’s son ill by practicing witchcraft on him.
The incident happened in Bemetara district in the central state of Chhattisgarh and those involved have been arrested – they include five women.
Witch hunts that target women are common in some parts of India and many women fall victims to such abuse. The practice of branding women as witches is particularly prevalent among tribal communities in India because, while some are triggered by superstitious beliefs, others are for material gains of land and property.