Witches' premium on albino rituals put lives at risk

Since the onset of capitalism, mankind has been embroiled in cut-throat competition for wealth.

Thus, unscrupulous businessmen in East Africa went crazy when some witchdoctors announced they could amass wealth by performing special charms with albino body parts.

Life for the albinos — who were until then probably only worried about skin cancer and poor vision — became worse as they kept looking behind their backs for the witchdoctors and their callous partners in crime.

According to the sly witchdoctors, the albinos’ hair once woven onto fishing nets, had a special charm for fishermen to catch more fish.

The perverts also made miners believe that ground albino bones once buried near the minefields had a special charm to direct them to where more mineral deposits were located.

Others even alleged that the dried bone powder would after sometime change into diamonds.

“Miners of gold, rubies and tanzanite are reported to pay large sums for juju (magic) amulets, which they wear around their necks or strap to their arms and which are derived from a potion that includes albino body parts,” Tanzania’s Guardian newspaper reported.

Thus decapitation, amputation and eventual sale of dismembered albino body parts became the order of the day.

“In most of the cases documented, the attacks involved dismembering the victim’s limbs and resulted in death,” a UN report indicated.

The report added: “Victims are beheaded — genitals, ears and bits of skin removed; tongues cut out and eyes and heart gouged out.”

“Some even believe that the witchcraft ritual will be more powerful if the victim screams during the amputation, thus body parts are often cut from live victims, especially children,” another UN special report indicated.

Albino children were specifically used in the rituals due to the belief that their innocence would increase the potency of the witchdoctor’s charms.

Strangely, in other cases, genitals of slain albinos were used by the same witchdoctors to manufacture treatment, which they alleged could assist men boost their sexual power.

Business was booming for the unscrupulous human traffickers but it only resulted in massive bloodshed, with the UN estimating that 72 albinos had been slain between 2000 and 2008 in Tanzania.

And as a sign of just how cruel the illicit trade dealers had become, in 2008, authorities in Tanzania arrested a 35-year-old fisherman who reportedly wanted to sell his 24-year-old albino wife to Congolese businessmen at more than Sh500, 000.

Later, another man was caught at the Tanzanian border carrying a bag containing a baby’s head.

He told authorities that a witchdoctor would pay him for the head depending on its weight, Tanzania’s Daily News reported.

Kenyans, known for their aggressiveness and excellent business acumen also found their way into the illicit trade, and the same fear with which Tanzanian albinos lived became equally palpable in this country.

Consequently in 2008, Tanzanian authorities rounded up 170 human traffickers — most of them witchdoctors.

Strangely however, it was alleged that most clients of the witchdoctors were senior politicians seeking re-election and that fishermen and miners were used as scapegoats.

But it is the duty of all world governments to protect their citizens from harm, and albinos across East Africa deserve this protection.