Albinos Murdered in the Name of Witchcraft in Tanzania

The country of Tanzania has been making headlines over the past few days for banning witchcraft.  Witch doctors: this loaded term may make traditional medicine practices of Africa seem savage, but the drive behind this headline is that some witchcraft practicioners are killing albino adults and children in order to use their body parts in magical remedies.  In an NPR article titled "Can a New Ban on Witchcraft Protect the Albinos of Tanzania," writer Linda Poon explores the long term practice of witchcraft in Tanzania, the Albino population, and the inhumane practice of exploiting people for their appearance in the name of medicine.  While targeting albinos may not be considered an act of terrorism, per se, the government's new law is one that shows a desire to oversee and police acts of murder that might hide under the guise of what some see as traditional African practices.

First off, let's clear up a few terms here:

What is a witch doctor?

Well, even the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry seems to include bias.  The entry initially states that a witch doctor is one who is "a person in some cultures who is believed to have magic powers and to be able to cure illness and fight off evil spirits, curses, etc."  So maybe that doesn't seem so bad.  There are many cultures, even our own American culture, that attribute magical qualities to small tokens, like a lucky penny.

If one reads below the initial entry, it claims a witch doctor to be "a professional worker of magic usually in a primitive society who often works to cure sickness."  So the idea of savagery and primitivity is embedded within the definition, as well as the cultural perception of what a witch doctor practices.

What is an albino?

An albino is a person who has a medical condition that results in no pigmentation of the skin, white hair, and possibly pink eyes.

Some witch doctors believe that albinos are ghosts with magical qualities that would benefit their practice; therefore, albinos are targeted in order to harvest them for their body parts and organs.  While that is a horrifying way to think about it, this act is an inhumane occurence that needs to be stopped.

That being said, the definition of a witch doctor and the condescending connotation of that word is one that skews the worldly perception of traditional African healing practices.  As Poon reports, many witch doctors are licensed by the government and focus on herbal remedies.

As far as the new law is concerned, the question is, will this help stop the atrocities against those with abinism?

Linda Poon quotes Peter Ash, a Canadian albino man who advocates for those with albinism in Tanzania, who does not feel optimistic about the new law.  Ash's concern is enforcement.  His point being that just because a law is in place, the government and police force may not do everything on their end to hold true to the law which would ban those witch doctors who attack albinos.  It seems that in many aspects, whether it is attacks against albinos, cult crimes in Nigeria as we read in Chimamanda Ngozi Adice's "Cell One," or the atrocities of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s seen in Hotel Rwanda, law enforcement and government corruption are a major issue.