FT260

When Mary Owido, 36, a senior school teacher at Isebania, on the Kenya-Tanzania border, learned that a girl she knew had been murd­ered and parts of her body removed, she became afraid for her own life because, like the murdered girl, Mary was an albino. In 2009, Mary moved to Ahero, in western Kenya, where she now works for less pay and brings up her six children. However, she still doesn’t feel safe. “Wherever I go people start talking about me, saying that my legs and hands can fetch a fortune in Tanzania. That kind of talk scares me.”

Albinos suffer this rare hereditary condition when both parents donate a recessive gene, and in Africa they already have a hard time, enduring insults, discrimination and ostracism all their lives, as well as an increased risk of contracting skin cancer.