Life in a low I.Q. country: Albinos targeted for body parts in sub-Saharan Africa

THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC

Albinos face deadly threats in Tanzania’s body parts trade
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN The New York Times Sunday, 8 June 2008

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Discrimination against albinos is
a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently
in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: At least 19 albinos,
including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year,
victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade
in albino body parts.

Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter —
believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the
lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition
that impairs skin pigmentation and strikes about one in 3,000
people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are marketing
albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are
promised to make people rich.

As the threats have increased, the Tanzanian government has
mobilized to protect its albino population, whose members are
often shunned as outcasts and die of skin cancer before they
reach 30.

Wave of killings linked to movies, rising food prices

Police officers are drawing up lists of albinos in the country to
better look after them. Officers are escorting albino children to
school. Tanzania’s president even sponsored an albino woman
for a seat in Parliament to show that “we are with them in this,”
said Salvator Rweyemamu, a government spokesman.

Authorities are at a loss to explain the wave of killings. Police
Commissioner Paul Chagonja said an influx of Nigerian movies,
which play up witchcraft, might have something to do with it,
along with rising food prices that were making people more
desperate.

The killings have spread to Kenya, where an albino woman was
hacked to death in late May, with her eyes, tongue and breasts
gouged out. And in Congo, advocates for albinos have said that
witch doctors are selling albino skin.

The young are often the targets. In early May, Vumilia Makoye,
17, was eating with her family in their hut in western Tanzania
when two men showed up with long knives.

‘They cut my daughter quickly’

When her mother, Jeme, saw the men with knives, she tried to
barricade the door of their hut. But the men overpowered her
and burst in.

“They cut my daughter quickly,” she said, making hacking motions
with her hands.

The men cut off the teen’s legs above the knee and ran away
with them. Vumilia died.

Vumilia was like many other Africans with albinism. She had
dropped out of school because of severe nearsightedness, a
common problem for albinos, whose eyes develop abnormally and
who often have to hold items such as books or cell phones two
inches away to see them.

She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making $2 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun.

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