Police challenged to probe market for albino tissues
The Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi (Apam) has challenged the Malawi Police Service and other national security agencies to investigate and find the market for tissues of persons with albinism (PWAs).
Apam President, Overstone Kondowe, said PWAs feel cheated because police cannot trace the alleged market where attackers sell body tissues.
Kondowe, who was speaking during a press briefing jointly held with the National Technical Committee on Abuse of Persons with Albinism in Malawi and the police, said that all efforts and measures put in place to end attacks against PWAs could be rendered irrelevant and ineffective if the police do not “unearth the market”.
“Perpetrators of violence and attacks against PWAs have been talking about the market where they sell body tissues. But what surprises us is failure by the police to press these attackers to lead them to where this market is,” he said.
“We are challenging police to establish the market for tissues of persons with albinism. It is only after the market has been unearthed that we will be satisfied,” Kondowe said.
Deputy National Police spokesperson, Thomeck Nyaude, said, since the onset of the attacks on PWAs in 2013, police has registered 122 cases.
Nyaude said that, out of these, police has completed and secured convictions in 41 cases while 56 cases are being investigated.
Chairperson of the National Technical Committee on Abuse of Persons with Albinism in Malawi, Hetherwick Ntaba, said the government is lobbying for death or life sentences for murder cases as provided for in the laws.
Ntaba said this would help deter would-be offenders.
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