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- Nov 11, 2006
Genitals removed while men are alive
By Kanina Foss
[color= rgb(0, 0, 0)]Young men are attacked and their genitals cut off while they are still alive; children's throats are slit and their organs removed; and border-crossers are caught with bags containing human heads and sexual organs.[/color]
These stories and more are contained in a horror report on the trafficking of human body parts in Mozambique and South Africa, which has unveiled a scary reality: body parts are frequently used in traditional medicine and there is a commonly held belief that such medicine is very powerful.
"Ritual killings are common here; it's like daily bread. We do not even get shocked when a person is found dead with body parts removed," said one of the South Africans interviewed.
[color= rgb(0, 0, 0)]'There is no law that prohibits us from going around with a human finger'[/color] Last year, 413 Mozambicans and South Africans attended open workshops and 139 went on to be interviewed. Twenty-two percent of interviewees had first-hand experience of seeing a mutilated body or separate body parts.
Furthermore, researchers could not find a single case in which someone caught carrying a body part had been prosecuted.
According to the Mozambican Human Rights League (LDH), which initiated the research, this is because there is no legislation - local or international - that criminalises the carrying of a body part without evidence linking the suspect to the actual murder.
[color= rgb(0, 0, 0)]"We need more legislation. There is no law that prohibits us from going around with a human finger. The law is against cutting it, but not carrying it," said LDH chairman Alice Mabota.[/color]
[color= rgb(0, 0, 0)]A total of 93 percent of the interviewees believed medicine containing body parts was more powerful.[/color]
From the belt hung the fingers and penises of children[color= rgb(0, 0, 0)].[/color] One of the researchers, Matshidisho Ntsiuoa, from Child Welfare in Bloemfontein, said she had spoken to a woman who had gone to a sangoma for help to fall pregnant. The sangoma gave her a belt to wear. From the belt hung the fingers and penises of children.
Although the woman felt uncomfortable about the belt, she wore it. She paid R4 000 for the consultation.
Most of the medicine is aimed at making businesses more successful, and the researchers are worried that with the Fifa World Cup approaching, body parts will be in higher demand as people try to capitalise on increased business opportunities.
One of the aims of the report is to make it easier for people to talk about what's happening. The interviewees were afraid to be identified and said they'd be killed if anyone found out.
Traditional healers who attended Tuesday's release of the report said they wanted to distance themselves from such "wrongdoings", and were worried that people needing help were not approaching them because they'd heard stories about the use of body parts.
http://www.iol.co.za/inde...20090304050556725C827345
Also,
Villagers in fear of occult killers who deal in flesh
The man who hacked off nine-year-old Fortune Khumalo's genitals struck as the youngster relieved himself in bushes. Using a machete, the attacker sliced off Fortune's penis and testicles, to sell the body parts to the lucrative traditional medicine - muti- market.
Fortune had become a victim of a crime of the occult that has rocketed in recent years to supply a booming trade in human body parts. He survived the attack but most victims do not and the Government estimates that there could be more than 300 muti murders a year. "The killings are driven by greed," said Thomas Khumalo, Fortune's father. "People believe using human body parts in medicine can make them rich."
Fortune's assailant was caught with the genitals wrapped in a towel in his pocket. He planned to sell them to a traditional healer in Johannesburg, where body parts are worth up to £250, and a human head can go for as much as £500.
Fortune is now in constant pain because his family cannot afford the reconstructive surgery he needs.
According to Special Superintendent Gerard Labuschagne, an expert on ritual killings, rogue traditional healers, known as sangomas, are behind the muti murders, prescribing body parts to patients and then hiring men to carry out the killings. Belief in the power of sangomas runs deep and many black South Africans visit them for anything from health matters to spiritual guidance.
[color= rgb(0, 0, 0)]Human genitals are the most prized parts and can be used to attract wealth and increase fertility. Children's body parts are believed to be the most potent. They are cooked and ground down, to be used with herbs and other ingredients. Sometimes parts are used whole - it is believed that if a human arm is waved around each morning in commercial premises it will draw customers.[/color]
Most muti murders have been concentrated in the poor rural province of Limpopo, in the north of the country, but recently the phenomenon has been spreading. In the town of Bizana, in Eastern Cape province, 18 people were murdered by a muti gang in nine months. Police arrested 14 men, but locals believe the sangomas behind the attacks were never caught. Vigilante groups now patrol the area at night.
"People are really scared. Even with a police presence here, the killings continued so we decided we had to act to protect ourselves," said Bongani Danga, the head of the vigilantes. The group has set up a night-time curfew and anyone breaking it is stopped and searched for machetes and hammers, the instruments used in attacks.
The Yalo family were the last victims; a number of men had been arrested and 17-year-old Anelisa thought the area was safe. But after spending the night at a friend's house she returned home to find the butchered body of her two sisters and her father.
[color= rgb(0, 0, 0)]"There was blood everywhere," she said. "They had taken my sisters' breasts and genitals." Victims are often tortured as they are killed as sangomas believe that the muti is more powerful if the person is alive and in pain when their parts are taken.[/color]
http://www.timesonline.co...frica/article4958549.ece
According to local lore
MUTI AND THE BODY
- Severed hands: buried under the door of a shop or business these would bring customers to the premises, making the owner wealthy
- Breasts: widely regarded in African traditional culture as the source of "mother luck", which would be used in magic potions to bring good fortune
- Genitals: both male and female are in demand, used by sangomas to boost virility in men and fertility in women
- Adam's apple: would be used to silence a witness who was intending to testify against a sangoma's client in court
- Skull: used to protect members of one tribe from another by burying the enemy victim's head in the tribe's village
- Eyes: supposed to confer far-sightedness
- Tongue: used to smooth the path to a girl's heart for a prospective lover
- Body fat: usually taken from the stomach, the fat is regarded by some people, especially the Venda, as the source of a good harvest
- Sperm and urine: also widely seen as a source of good luck
- Atlas bone: regarded as powerful muti because of the belief that the circulatory and nervous systems run through it
- Brains: would help to confer intelligence
