Albinos, don't let them alone

I arrived at Kabanga Protectorate Center after a long exchange of emails that allowed me to obtain an informal agreement with the director of the center. I stayed there more than a month in order to know better the harsh reality of albinos people in Tanzania. Be an albino in Tanzania is practically a death sentence. Rejected and stigmatized by the same families and communities they come from, albinos have to face and bear big discrimination. They are not allowed to go to school and they live in poverty. Very often they do not even know what albinism is and how to take care of this congenital disorder, characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes, that cause skin cancer. Furthermore, in the last few years, a huge and deadly black market provoked the hunting of the albinos. Their body parts are believed to be real lucky charm to be used in magical rituals to ensure good harvest, to win political election, to gain wealth, prosperity and fertility. A vicious circle of murders, witch doctors and people willing and able to pay a lot of money that, only in Tanzania, produced more than 150 victims and hundreds of mutilations. Many albinos nowadays live in protected and safeguarded center managed by the government that, actually, seems to be unable to manage this complicated social situation. Isolated, inside enclosure walls, without any kind of freedom, albinos are protected from their enemies. They can't go out without armed body guards. Prisoners in their own houses, refugees in their own country. I did this reportage for the NGO that I created with my friends, www.faeforlife.org