Every year, thousands of devotees gather at the Osun-Osogbo sacred grove to venerate and commemorate the Yoruba goddess of Fertility, OSUN/OSHUN with many thousands more joining in across the world in the African-derived extensions of the IFA corpus such as Cuban Santeria and Lucumi and Brazilian Candomble.
Osun’s annual festival is the most known in the Yoruba corpus as well as the other African faith systems and her sacred grove was listed as a heritage site by UNESCO in 2005 and given protected status.  
(Ref: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1118/)

Here in the UK, Ifa practitioners, Osun initiates and other devotes also commemorate this significant event in the Yoruba calendar with communal gatherings at rivers and streams in communion with the festival in Osogbo. However, even as the UK holds ‘religious tolerance’ as a key national value and respect for all faiths, Osun’s is not listed as part of the nation’s celebrated religious festivals nor is it even recognised in the workplace. 

This has many adverse implications under the Equality Act 2010 Act, which makes provisions for protecting one’s religious beliefs. For example, whilst those of other religions can access statutory entitlements off work to celebrate their traditions, the same is not afforded IFA or Osun devotees. Other adverse effects of this can be seen in court settings for example, where no provision is made for swearing oaths using one’s theology, as is afforded other religions and faiths. Even in marriage or unions our traditional ceremonies are not accommodated, not to mention burial rites and many other issues that result from this non-recognition. 

The importance of having Osun’s festival listed also has very important social value in terms of providing wider awareness to the public to encourage tolerance and better understanding of IFA and other African traditions. This is a very effective counter that will particularly help address hate speech directed towards Osun’s festival and the other African traditions in general, which many still demonise as being ‘witchcraft’ or associated with ‘evil’.
Such careless and reckless descriptions of the traditions should not be allowed as it contravenes the Human Rights Act of 1989 (Articles 9 and 10), which the UK is signatory to, to protect religious belief and practitioners. 
The UK government has a legal and moral responsibility to list and promote Osun’s festival as it does for all other practiced faiths in the country, to add to the ever-growing diversity of religious expressions we now celebrate annually, from Diwali to Eid, the Chinese New Year to Christmas amongst others, thereby improving our understanding of and respect for each other.
 
Britain especially has a significant role to play in this, because it was the first of the European countries to outlaw ceremonies such as Osun’s in its colonies under the Obeah Act of 1898 in Jamaica, on the basis of a very vague definition of what ‘Obeah’ entailed.
Such legislation still exists in statute books and is what also provides much of the stigmatisations we continue to find of African spiritual expressions such as Osun’s. As such there is also the historical redress Britain must make in acknowledging and correcting its past wrongs under Empire. 

Sign this petition so we can make a historical step in our reparative collective spiritual healing and reclamation of our Traditions.