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Journalism of Courage
The head of police in Tanzania8217;s capital,Dar es Salaam,this week handed out free mobile phones to several hundred locals with albinism. This is a melanin deficiency that renders African skin pink and vulnerable to cancer,turns hair wispy and leaves eyes pale and impaired. Each phone comes with a hot line to the police. Albinos text in their location if they suspect they are being tracked by gangsters determined to kill them and harvest their body parts.
According to the Tanzania Albino Society,at least 35 albinos were murdered in Tanzania last year to supply witch doctors with limbs,organs and hair for their potions. The violence of the attacks and the prejudices they reinforce,both about albinos and Africa,have prompted Tanzania8217;s government to act. It has appointed an albino woman as a member of parliament to champion the interests of some 200,000 albinos in the country. The albinos,for their part,have applauded the intervention as well as other measures,such as attempts to stamp out the use of the Swahili word zeru meaning ghost for albinos. Nonetheless,they say that efforts to convict albino-killers have been thwarted by a rotten judicial system,with witch doctors using bribery or threats of spells to escape trial.
Investigators say the body parts of a single murdered albino sell for over 1,000,with the skin and flesh dried out and set into amulets and the bones ground down into a powder. Artisanal miners in the gold and diamond fields directly south of Lake Victoria are the main buyers. Some sprinkle albino powder on the walls of their narrow pits,hoping for glitter. Uneducated and desperate to strike riches,they are taken in by witch doctors8217; stories of the wealth-giving properties of the potions.
The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008
