Governments around the world must push Tanzania to halt a wave of killings of albinos, says the leader of a campaign against this outburst of violence based on skin colour.

Efforts to stop the slaughter of albinos could eventually include calls for a tourism boycott of Tanzania, adds Peter Ash, founder of the Canada-based group rallying global opposition to the killings.

A move to target Tanzania’s tourism industry is “not felt to be the most effective way to act at this point, but it’s not off the table,” Mr Ash said in an interview last week.

Increased international pressure is urgently needed, however, because Tanzanian authorities have not done enough to protect the country’s albinos, Mr Ash said. He noted that “not a single prosecution” has been initiated in response to the murders of at least 43 Tanzanian albinos in the past year and a half.

Government officials “said all the right things” when he led a five-member North American delegation to Tanzania in October, Mr Ash added. But the failure to punish those responsible for the atrocities means “it’s just been all talk,” he asserted.

Mr Ash also cited accounts in the Tanzania media of alleged complicity of some police officers in the violence against albinos.

And he argued that the government’s lagging response can be attributed to “some degree of discriminatory attitudes throughout Tanzanian society.” While the vast majority of Tanzanians are clearly appalled by the killings, “subtle and unspoken” bigotry toward albinos is widespread not only in East Africa but in almost all “non-Caucasian cultures,” including China, Mr Ash said.

Deterrent steps must be taken as a matter of urgency, he continued, warning that the killings are starting to spread to other parts of East Africa. An albino was recently murdered in Burundi and there are reports of an albino having gone missing in Kenya, he noted.

Following a career as both a minister and an entrepreneur, Mr Ash, himself an albino, is now working full-time on humanitarian causes, especially the Under the Same Sun Foundation that he established in Vancouver a year ago. Under the Same Sun seeks to educate on albino-related issues, with most of its activities aimed at promoting awareness about what is occurring in Tanzania.

Mr Ash plans to open an albino-staffed office of Under the Same Sun in Dar es Salaam next month. He also said he intends to make a return visit to Tanzania in April.

Albinism is a relatively rare genetic disorder in North America and Europe, where it affects about one in 20,000 people, Mr Ash explained. It is more common in East Africa, with one in 3,000 people having the pale skin, fair hair and visual impairments associated with albinism.

In Africa, he said, albinos are feared by some as “ghosts from Europe” or as embodiments of evil spirits.

A few practitioners of traditional medicine are primarily to blame for instigating the wave of killings in Tanzania, Mr Ash maintained. He said that in the animism belief system followed by these “witchdoctors” there is a notion that “in order for something to live, something else must die.”

The body parts of an albino are also viewed as conferring magical powers as well as longevity on those who use them as talismans or as potions, Mr Ash said.

Slain albinos are typically being dismembered, with their heads, limbs and genitals ground into powders or hacked into pieces that are sold to clients as charms, he noted.

“It’s the same foundation as for the Holocaust in Europe or slavery in the United States,” he declared. “The treatment of albinos is no different from what Hitler brought about by convincing Germans that Jews weren’t human beings. There’s a core belief in parts of Africa that albinos aren’t really human beings.”