Albinism is most common—and most feared—in sub-Saharan Africa. In Tanzania, one in about 1,400 children are born with it.
In North America and Europe, the rate is far lower, about one in 20,000. A parent may have normal skin and hair pigmentation and mate with a partner who looks the same but, if each carries the recessive gene for albinism, a child will be born with the condition. Albinos, or people with albinism, the term they prefer, suffer reduced eyesight and increased risk of skin cancer, but the condition does not affect intellect or ability.
A nonprofit organization Ash formed, called Under the Same Sun, reports that at least 378 people with albinism—about two-thirds of them children—have been murdered or maimed in the past 15 years in 25 sub-Saharan nations, almost half in Tanzania. …show more content…
Girls and women with albinism are also raped by men who believe the myth that their HIV can be cured that way.
In 2008, the Tanzanian government, embarrassed by reports of attacks, rounded up hundreds of pale African children and shipped them to nine schools already designated for children with disabilities, including blindness. (People with albinism are often declared legally blind and, in adulthood, typically do not drive.)
The photos above were taken at one such school, the Kabanga Protectorate Center.
Picture of sisters braid each other's hair
Sisters who live and study at the Kabanga center braid each other’s hair. Tanzanians with albinism say they feel hunted, and news reports have documented more than 60 killings of those with the disorder over the last five years.
PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHANIE SINCLAIR
'I Always Travel With
In North America and Europe, the rate is far lower, about one in 20,000. A parent may have normal skin and hair pigmentation and mate with a partner who looks the same but, if each carries the recessive gene for albinism, a child will be born with the condition. Albinos, or people with albinism, the term they prefer, suffer reduced eyesight and increased risk of skin cancer, but the condition does not affect intellect or ability.
A nonprofit organization Ash formed, called Under the Same Sun, reports that at least 378 people with albinism—about two-thirds of them children—have been murdered or maimed in the past 15 years in 25 sub-Saharan nations, almost half in Tanzania. …show more content…
Girls and women with albinism are also raped by men who believe the myth that their HIV can be cured that way.
In 2008, the Tanzanian government, embarrassed by reports of attacks, rounded up hundreds of pale African children and shipped them to nine schools already designated for children with disabilities, including blindness. (People with albinism are often declared legally blind and, in adulthood, typically do not drive.)
The photos above were taken at one such school, the Kabanga Protectorate Center.
Picture of sisters braid each other's hair
Sisters who live and study at the Kabanga center braid each other’s hair. Tanzanians with albinism say they feel hunted, and news reports have documented more than 60 killings of those with the disorder over the last five years.
PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHANIE SINCLAIR
'I Always Travel With