The following blog post was submitted by Lisa Matthews

The shocking murder of a six-year-old albino girl in Burundi on 16 November 2008 is just the latest episode in an ongoing crisis in central Africa: the trade in albino body parts for ritual medicine.  This problem has spread to Burundi from neighbouring Tanzania, where twenty-six albinos have been killed in under a year.

Kasim Kazungu, head of the Burundi Albinos’ Association, told the BBC that Burundian people with Albinism had not been discriminated against until the rumours of the profitable trade in albino body parts in Tanzania migrated across the border.  These rumours had prompted recent events in Burundi.

This is worrying news for the community of approximately two hundred albinos in Burundi.  An attack in Ruyigi province had lead to a group of fifty people with Albinism fleeing to a provincial centre.  The group included the murdered girl, and according to the BBC’s Prime Ndikumagenge, she and her family had just returned home when the fatal attack took place.

These violent incidents are extreme examples of the challenges faced by persons with Albanism in central Africa.  They also face epidemic rates of fatal skin cancer, and often have some degree of visual impairment.
 
These disadvantages result in difficulties in gaining education and employment, exacerbated by widespread social discrimination against people with Albanism, and more generally persons with disabilities in Africa.

Felix Silwimba, writing of the treatment of person with disabilities in Africa, describes how adult disablement can result in a loss of employment, and their families denouncing them.  They are seen to break conventions of female beauty and masculine strength, affecting how others treat them.  Depression and poverty are frequent outcomes from these situations.

One of the biggest factors in discrimination against persons with disability is superstition and the perpetuation of myths.  This can affect any person with a disability, but is similarly pertinent to those with Albinism.  Because of a lack of public awareness around Albinism, myths flourish, such as: albinos are evil or a curse from God; people with albinism never die, they just vanish; they are born to black women who have slept with white men; and that albinism is a contagious disease; to name a few.

Traditional beliefs do not, however, have to be a barrier to independent living.  Silwimba demonstrates that providing for disabled persons can be deemed as appeasing the ancestors, and highlights the strong supportive role community networks in Africa can play.  Customary behaviour, then, is multi-dimensional, but the violent attacks on albinos in central Africa result in the negative element of superstition receiving media attention, and negative stereotypes of African culture being sustained.