it felt like a punishment growing up with albinism in Tanzania
“It Felt Like A Punishment”: Growing Up with Albinism in Tanzania Advocacy Brochure Author image Introduction “When the killings began, my teacher asked me to stop coming to school.” - “Juma”, July 2017 Juma was 16 years old when Human Rights Watch interviewed him in July 2017. Seven years earlier, his life had been turned upside down because he was born with albinism. Orphaned since the age of six, Juma lived with his siblings and his grandfather, a heavy drinker, in a rural area of Northwest Tanzania, south of Lake Victoria. “Sometimes, when he was drunk or talking about me with his mates, my grandfather would call me ‘Chinese’ or ‘Mbolimbwelu’ which means ‘white goat’. I felt very bad,” Juma said. As a wave of ritual killings and amputations of people with albinism, especially children, began to spread in Tanzania in the late 2000s, the country’s government set forth measures designed to ensure the physical safety of children with albinism, including by establishing “temporary holdi...