Albinism Day helps alleviate suffering and end discrimination

THE plight of people living with albinism came under the spotlight as the world marked International Albinism Awareness Day yesterday.

In 2014, the General Assembly of the UN adopted a resolution declaring June 13 International Albinism Awareness Day.

This resolution, according to the Centre for Constitutional Rights, served to affirm the need to advocate more fiercely for the rights of persons with albinism (PWA) across the globe.

The centre said there had been numerous cases reported concerning violence against PWA including the ritual killing in 2015 of Thandazile Mpunzi, a woman with albinism, by her boyfriend and two others, one of whom was a traditional healer, said the centre.

There is a belief that body parts of PWA attract wealth and as a result, PWA are killed and dismembered for muti.

Activist Siphosethu Mbuli did not look like any other child in her small disadvantaged community and because of superstitions and preconceptions, she was called names so she socially isolated herself.

Mbuli was born with albinism. The soft-spoken 24-year-old, who now resides in Kayamandi in Stellenbosch, has never known what it is not to stick out.

“I was the only child with albinism in a small village in King William’s Town. It was traumatising as a child to be teased and laughed at about something I didn’t understand, how I got it and no one was there to explain it to me.

“I received discrimination from elders in the village more than from my peers. Other children wouldn’t want to play with me as their parents warned them not to.

“Pregnant women believed it was bad luck for them to meet someone who has albinism, because that means their child will also be born with it,” Mbuli recalls.

The student at UCT is well known as a human rights activist and started a foundation called Love, This Skin.

Mbuli’s organisation supports young people with albinism and their families. The majority come from disadvantaged backgrounds and she provides them with necessities like sun protection and eyecare.

“For me the important thing is that there is visibility.”