The New Zealand Herald reports that the woman said if she
returned to Zimbabwe her late father's tribe could use sorcery against her to
force her to become the next n’anga.
The woman's mother fell pregnant at 17 to the sangoma of
another tribe - members of the VaRemba culture - who lived about 250km away. When
her parents found out about the pregnancy, they took her to the man's tribe and
demanded he take care of her, as custom dictated. But she later fled and the
sangoma later passed away.
The woman’s daughter, then in her 20s, got married and
had a son. The pair and their son travelled to New Zealand on false South
African passports, and sought refugee or protected person status.
The woman gave birth to another son in August that year,
while detained in community accommodation. Their initial appeals for refugee
status pointed to political troubles for the husband, and were dismissed as not
credible.
The trouble began in 2017 when members of the tribe
approached the woman's mother at her home and told her that as the n’anga’sr's
eldest child, the woman must return home and take his place.
They said many people had died since his death, and that a
spirit had possessed one of their members and announced the woman must be the
village's next n'anga.
But the Immigration tribunal found there was "simply
no scientific principle underlying any claim of the efficacy or power of
sorcery".
"Absent any testable, verifiable and falsifiable, and
independent evidence of witchcraft powers which would otherwise seem to defy
the laws of physics and/or chemistry, the tribunal is satisfied that claims of
harm arising from acts of witchcraft do not suffice for the purposes of
establishing the well-foundedness element of the refugee inquiry."
It had not been established that the tribe would be able to
use sorcery to force the woman to take up the mantle of n;anga, the
decision said.
"She may be subjectively fearful that they can do so
but the objective reality is that they cannot."
There was also no evidence of any real risk she would
suffer serious harm or that she would be physically forced into the role, the
decision said.
The appeals for refugee and protected person status were
dismissed.
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