Albinos ask for government protection over life threats

Embu County people living with albinism want both the national and county government to offer enough security to people of their kind within the county to avoid being kidnapped and ferried to the neighboring country Tanzania.

Albinism Coordinator, Adriane Njoki, said that people living with albinism, also categorized as people living with disability, have previously been kidnapped and killed in Tanzania by people practicing witchcraft following perceptions that their body parts can be used for witchcraft purposes to accumulate wealth among other believes.

Ms Njoki said that women who give birth to children with albinism are sent away with the perception that they conceived out of wedlock.

“We undergo sun burns, lack of clear sight, others call us names like pigs, zeruzeru, and even money. We thank the Kenyan government because, through our National Council for Persons with Disabilities, we have been able to receive caps, t-shirts and oil to use in order not to be affected by the sun burns,” she said.

Ms Njoki added that this has led to many women within the society being perceived in bad faith while the condition they children they bear is disability and lack of melanin and thus leading to many albino not accept their conditions.

She said the Albinos are currently living in fear of been kidnapped and killed by people practicing witchcraft.

She also called on the public to accept those people living with disabilities, saying that they are just normal human beings and they should not sideline them in any undertakings.

“I urge the men who chase away their women claiming they conceived with the white men, not to do so, for it is a condition only known by God for doctors say it is lack of melanin not that the kid is bad or a mother conceived by a white person.”

Written by Elizabeth Kibor