Disability in Tanzania

Albinos are among the most endangered disabled people in Tanzania. They suffer skin lesions from the hot sun and are counted as disabled because of their very poor vision.

According to the traditional beliefs body parts of an albino are helpful in curing all kinds of illnesses, which is why albinos are being persecuted and killed by head hunters or paid killers. Witchdoctors inside and outside of Tanzania are their main customers. Killers will storm the houses of families with an albino member and chop off their legs or arms. The last really big and medially covered wave of the killings was in 2008, when many albinos left their homes and went into hiding into the bush.

Arms chopped off - lucky to be alive?

 Albinism in Tanzania is still such a stigma that traditional midwives will take away from the mother an albino newborn baby without showing it to her, take it away and kill it. Then they will return to the mother to tell her that her baby was born dead.

Are happier times to come? We don't know.