Albinos in Tanzania murdered or raped as AIDS 'cure'A widespread African superstition claims that albinos' blood contains magical powers and their body parts are talismans.
By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala, Reuters
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FEARFUL: Selina and her friend Mwanaidi play in a classroom in Tanzania. The 10-year-old girl belongs to a minority of approximately 150,000 albinos in Tanzania and only feels safe at school. (Photo: Johan Baevman/ZUMA Press)
DAR ES SALAAM - Hundreds of albinos are thought to have been killed for black magic purposes in Tanzania and albino girls are being raped because of a belief they offer a cure for AIDS, a Canadian rights group said on Thursday.
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At least 63 albinos, including children, are known to have been killed, mostly in the remote northwest of the country.
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"We believe there are hundreds and hundreds of killings in Tanzania, but only a small number are being reported to the police," Peter Ash, founder and director of Under The Same Sun, told Reuters.
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"There is belief that if you have relations with a girl with albinism, you will cure AIDS. So there are many girls with albinism who are being raped in this country because of this belief, which is a false belief."
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Around 1.4 million Tanzanians among a population of 40.7 million have the HIV virus that leads to AIDS.
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Albino hunters kill their victims and harvest their blood, hair, genitals and other body parts for potions that witchdoctors say bring luck in love, life and business.
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"(It is believed) a person with albinism is a curse. They are from the devil, they are not human, they do not die, they simply disappear," said Ash.
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Ernest Kimaya, head of the Tanzania Albino society and a sufferer of the pigment disorder, said social stigma prevented many girls from reporting rape, making it difficult to say how many albinos had been sexually abused.
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"These things are taking place underground. Even the albino killings started quietly, before the atrocities were finally exposed in public," Kimaya told Reuters.
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Activists last week reported three murders of teenage albino boys from the same family in northern Tanzania, who were poisoned and their bones later robbed from their graves.
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The Tanzanian government says it is determined to halt the macabre killings, but has been widely criticized for inaction.
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http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/albinos-in-tanzania-murdered-or-raped-as-aids-cure