07/26/2017
Two children with albinism murdered in Mozambique
Better protection for people with albinism – action plan must be implemented! (Press Release)
Since 2006, more than 600 people with albinism have been attacked and injured, especially in eastern and southern Africa. Photo: MONUSCO Photos via Flickr
Following the murder of two Albino children in Mozambique, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has called for a more effective protection of people with albinism in African countries. “There must be an action plan for Southern Africa, co-developed by the United Nations, to protect people with albinism from attacks,” explained Ulrich Delius, the STP’s director, in Göttingen. According to police reports, the murders had occurred last weekend. The victims are a six-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl with albinism.
Human traffickers pay large amounts of money for corpses of people with albinism, which – according to traditional beliefs – have great healing and magical powers. Since 2006, more than 600 people with albinism have been attacked and injured, especially in eastern and southern Africa. Dozens of them were killed in these attacks.
Most of the attacks take place in Malawi and Mozambique. In Malawi’s Rumphi district, only ten days ago, criminals had tried to exhume the corpse of a woman with albinism, who had died in 2004, in order to sell the remaining body parts. Relatives of the deceased woman had watched them and then informed the police. In Mozambique, body parts of people with albinism can be sold for 75,000 Euros.
The Regional Plan of Action on Albinism in Africa, which focuses on the period until 2021, does not only involve more educational efforts and public relations work to combat the superstition that body parts of people with albinism have healing powers; it is also intended to contribute to more effective legal protection and a more consistent prosecution of attacks. On May 22, 2017, the African Commission on Human Rights had demanded the Action Plan to be implemented comprehensively and as soon as possible.
In the summer of 2017, the UN Expert on the Rights of People with Albinism, Ikponwosa Ero, had repeatedly called on the African states to step up the measures to combat discrimination and violence against people with albinism and to implement the action plan.
Header Photo: MONUSCO Photos via Flickr
