Crackdown Against Senseless Superstition on Tanzania
April 5th, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Human Rights, Prejudice, Skepticism, Superstition
Via the BBC,
“Tanzania’s president has ordered a crackdown on witchdoctors who use body parts from albinos in magic potions to bring people good luck or fortune. “This is senseless cruelty. It must stop forthwith,” Jakaya Kikwete said on television, AFP news agency reports. “I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body parts, including fingers, believing they can get rich when mining or fishing,” he said. The order comes after the murder of 19 albinos in the last year. The BBC’s Vicky Ntetema in Dar es Salaam says there is a widespread belief in Tanzania that the condition is the result of a curse put on the family. Some people hide the albino members of the family for fear of them either being rejected by the community or killed. Old women with red eyes have been killed in parts of Tanzania, after being accused of witchcraft, she says.”
Tanzania has 8,000 registered albinos, but NGOs suspect that there are 270,000 across the country and they have accused the government of not doing enough to protect them as they are stigmatized and victimized for the color of their skin. I guess things do change for the better than 100 years ago, albino babies were killed at birth as their condition was taken to be the product of their mothers’ adultery with European men… why are medical disorders always first interpreted as reflections of women / mothers’ moral standing? I blame the patriarchy.
Posted in Human Rights, Prejudice, Religious Fundamentalism | No Comments »
