Man Held for Trying to Sell His Albino Wife
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Sapa-AFP, November 12, 2008
A man has been arrested in southern Tanzania on suspicion of attempting to sell his albino wife to Congolese traders, police said on Wednesday.
Rukwa regional police commander Isunto Mantage said John Joseph was about to sell his wife Janet for 3,6-million shillings (around R35 000) when caught by a police sting operation.
Mantage said the man was caught “after the police set a trap, but the two Congolese traders escaped”.
The woman told the police she was not aware of her husband’s plot but he confessed to having struck a deal with the Congolese.
In a spate of gruesome incidents over the past few months, albinos have been kidnapped, killed and dismembered for witch doctors who use their limbs and organs to make lucky charms.
The latest victim was a 10-year-old girl, who was murdered and mutilated late last month.
At least 27 albinos, mostly women and children, have been killed in different parts of the east African country over the past year alone.
“It is utterly stupid for some people to believe that albinos have magic powers and their parts can make them rich,” Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete told a recent rally by the Tanzania Albino Society (TAS).
“People should be provided with education to understand that it is only through hard working that they can prosper in life and not through selling albinos’ body parts.”
On Tuesday, two suspects appeared before a resident magistrate’s court in Tanzania’s central region of Singida for conspiring to kill a six-year-old albino girl.
Of about 150 000 albinos in the country of 35 million according to its 2002 census, 8,000 are registered with the TAS. Some families kill albino babies upon birth, authorities say.
(Posted on November 14, 2008)
Comments
*“People should be provided with education to understand that it is only through hard working that they can prosper in life and not through selling albinos’ body parts.”*
He’s wrong. If there’s a demand, there shall be a supply. Don’t criticize the suppliers.
Posted by onetwothree at 6:52 PM on November 14
“It is utterly stupid for some people to believe that albinos have magic powers and their parts can make them rich,”
Really? Thanks for the insight Einstein. It is mind boggling that you would need to make a statement like this. How can anyone think that way?
I don’t care if your in a third world country, this is 2008. We have built the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and these guys are talking about magic Albino body parts? unbelievable….
Posted by at 7:44 PM on November 14
As a veteran of ivy league academia, I have to point out that the official consensus among academics is that no culture is more or less advanced than any other, just “different.”
This non-judgmental perspective once had a valuable purpose:
to allow soial scientists to examine foregin cultures neutrally, without imposing their own values frame.
What an interesting “thought experiment”!
Back in reality, black Africa is thousands of years behind Europe civilizationally, and the major challenges there are:
*don’t mutilate your daughter’s genitals. (applies to Somalia etc., not all of black africa)
*don’t enslave, exterminate, or eat neighboring tribes - they are human too.
*rape is wrong, sex with small children is too (this idea is still a fairly bold innovation in parts of Africa).
*basic sanitation - don’t mix sewerage with drinkling water.
*combat belief in Muti magic (if you are sick, visit a real doctor instead of carving up your neighbor and eating him).
*etc.
It is not just modern science that is lacking, but a fundamental understanding of cause and effect as such.
But then who are Americans to preach?
Genetics is the basic science of life on earth, and people who refuse to believe it are almost “African” themselves.
Posted by elitist at 5:35 AM on November 15
Seeing as the powers that be are hell bent on turning the entire world into one large Africa, such barbarity and superstitions are likely going to be common all over the world - as the world gets blacker and blacker and blacker…
Posted by jewamongyou at 7:31 PM on November 15
It’s amusing and frightening to compare this item with Scholar Finds Mayans’ Buried Highway Through Hell. The Mayans and Aztecs had rituals that are repulsive to modern Americans, but I don’t think that they equalled in ghastliness those extant in contemporary Africa.
Where are the Feminists when they’re needed? —Maybe,too busy celebrating the “historic” Obama victory
Posted by at 6:51 PM on November 16
People should be provided with education to understand that it is only through hard working that they can prosper in life and not through selling albinos’ body parts.
If these Africans were even slightly decent people they whould not need to be ‘educated’ that murder of innocents is wrong.
Posted by at 8:23 PM on November 16
People should be provided with education to understand that it is only through hard working that they can prosper in life and not through selling albinos’ body parts.
If these Africans were even slightly decent people they whould not need to be ‘educated’ that murder of innocents is wrong.
Posted by at 8:24 PM on November 16
In closed circles, I have mentioned to friends and colleagues that the unsavory elements should be spayed and neutered at birth for their own protection, as well as for the benefit of society at large. That remark occasionally earns me a raised eyebrow. In light of the facts, I have no idea why.
I think Blacks would fare somewhat better without the incessant sex drive that retards their decision making processes. Of course, eliminating their sex drive will not address their other natural impulses to assault, rob, and murder people.
JR
Posted by at 12:37 AM on November 17
I don’t care if your in a third world country, this is 2008. We have built the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and these guys are talking about magic Albino body parts? unbelievable….
And just how many black Africans were involved in any aspect of the design, construction and percieved operation of said collider? I bet there are some Africans that think the use of albino body parts for magic is the pinnacle of science.
Posted by Skip at 6:04 AM on November 17
The murders continue
BBC News ^ | 17 Nov 2008 | anon
A six-year-old albino girl in Burundi has been found dead with her head and limbs removed, in the latest killing linked to ritual medicine. Albinos in the region have been targeted because of a belief peddled by witchdoctors that their body parts can be used for magic potions.
The girl, who was attacked on Sunday, was the sixth person with albinism to be killed in Burundi since September. There have also been a number of attacks in neighbouring Tanzania. …The head of the Burundi Albinos’ Association, Kasim Kazungu, says people with albinism had not suffered any discrimination until other Burundians…
Posted by at 5:47 PM on November 17