A/HRC/11/2 page 19 51. The first is that the number of so-called witches killed or otherwise persecuted is high in the aggregate. Responses to witchcraft frequently involve serious and systematic forms of discrimination, especially on the grounds of gender, age and disability. In addition, the relatives of the witches are also often subjected to serious human rights violations. 52. In response, international human rights bodies have dealt only sporadically with the issue and have focused mainly on the need for consciousness-raising and education. For the most part, the response has been a very limited one and the complexity of the challenges has tended to be glossed over. 53. At the national level, legal approaches vary greatly. A significant number of States have legislation providing for the punishment of witchcraft. Few appear to make regular use of such laws routinely. In some States, such as the Central African Republic, witchcraft is a capital offence. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, a pending draft bill to amend the Islamic Penal Code of 1991 prescribes the death penalty for any Muslim who is involved with witchcraft and promotes it in the society as a profession or sect, but not for non-Muslims. Where the formal legal system is silent, traditional or customary law will often be used. Customary approaches vary from a heavy emphasis on mediation to severe and even deadly punishments.53 54. In 1998, in South Africa, a national conference on witchcraft violence called for the repeal of the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957, in part because it could in fact be fuelling witchcraft violence. It called for new legislation to adopt a pragmatic approach acknowledging the belief in witchcraft and the possibility that some forms are benign. It called for clear definitions of “witch”, “wizard” and “witchcraft”, and an emphasis on conciliation and mediation.54 Other studies, however, have highlighted the inherent contradictions between a judicial approach that “objectifies sorcellerie as always evil and hence to be completely eradicated” and local discourse on witchcraft, which views it more positively “as a special force that can be used for various ends”.55 55. Commentators are sceptical of the value of judicial approaches in many settings: “Where cases of witchcraft have entered the formal judicial system in Africa, the results have generally not been salutary for the health of that system or the cause of justice.”56 The available evidence from human rights sources also counsels against the criminalization of witchcraft. The first 53 Herman Slaats and Karen Portier, “Sorcery and the law in modern Indonesia”, in C.W. Watson and Roy Ellen (eds.), Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia, 1993. 54 Commission on Gender Equality, “Thohoyandou Declaration on ending witchcraft violence”, available at www.cge.org.za/backup/userfiles/documents/national_conf_witchcraft1998.pdf, p. vii. 55 Peter Geschiere, The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa, 1997, p. 171. 56 Adam Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa, 2005.