Beauty beyond skin: slaying with albinism

There are beautiful albinos who feel good about themselves. “In Africa, people have black skin when a woman gives birth to an albino.

In several countries in southern and eastern Africa, such as Tanzania, Malawi, Burundi and Mozambique, persons with albinism are subjected to numerous attacks.

Some even seek their limbs and other parts of their bodies for rituals believed to bring wealth and luck. This type of attack is however rare in Kenya.

Albinism is a rare group of genetic disorders that cause the skin, hair, or eyes to have little or no color. It is also associated with a number of vision defects.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) “a lucrative and macabre market” has emerged in the body parts of people with albinism being traded for use in witchcraft rituals, potions or amulets, with reported prices ranging from $2,000 (Sh200,000 ) for a limb to $75,000 (Sh7.5 million) for a ‘complete set’ or corpse.

“In Malawi, people with albinism face ‘total extinction’ ” read the headlines, following the first official visit to Malawi in April 2016 by Ikponwosa Ero, the UN Independent Expert on the rights of Persons with Albinism. She warned that the atrocities faced by persons with albinism in Malawi render them “an endangered group of people facing a risk of systemic extinction over time if nothing is done.”

People with albinism are subjected to stigma and discrimination ranging from bullying at school to more extreme manifestations such as kidnappings, grave desecrations and physical attacks that are often fatal with bodies being dismembered. These acts have been promulgated by several myths and superstitions purporting that their body parts hold magical powers.

Women and children are particularly vulnerable as some of the myths claim that having sex with a woman with albinism can cure HIV/Aids making them targets of sexual assault. Other claims are that children’s body parts yielded more potent potions. Mothers are ostracised or discriminated against if they give birth to a child with albinism because it’s seen as the result of a curse, a bad omen or of infidelity.

“Many do not sleep peacefully and have deliberately restricted their movement to the necessary minimum,” Ero said.

“The frequent involvement of close relatives in cases of attacks is highly disturbing, and persons with albinism are unable to trust even those who are supposed to care for and protect them. Consequently, persons with albinism in the current context of attacks are locked in a spiral of fear and poverty.”

Additionally, the perpetrators are rarely caught let alone prosecuted. And for the few who are convicted, the sentences do not always reflect the gravity of the crime.

“As pointed out by various stakeholders during my visit, stealing a cow may attract a higher penalty,” Ero added.

According to the ‘Reported Attacks of Persons with Albinism’ report dated September 27, 2016 by the Canadian charity ‘Under the Same Sun’, after reviewing 180 countries, it lists 187 recent killings and 314 attacks, all within 26 African countries; noting that many attacks and killings in Africa are not documented or reported.

It further notes that countries known to be involved in the cross-border trade of people with albinism and their body parts include Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, DRC, Mozambique, Malawi, South Africa and Swaziland.

But in Kenya and across the continent there are prominent people living with albinism and it doesn’t bother them at all they love their skin and who they are.

 

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