Sexual Torture Preferred Means Of Eliminating HIV-Inducing Witches In Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is presently facing an AIDS catastrophe, accounting for 90 percent of HIV infections in the entire Oceania region. HIV diagnoses have risen there by around 30 percent every year since 1997, leaving an estimated 60,000 people living with the disease in 2005. The source of the disease's prodiguous rise in PNG is clear: the rampant practice of witchcraft among local women. Although a high level of sexual violence perpetrated against Papa New Guinea's female population has been identified as a major source of the HIV epidemic, presently a preferred method of combating the disease among PNG's population is sexual torture of the predominantly female witch community. One source estimates there have been more than 500 such attacks in PNG during the past year.