Thabisile Khoza
Nelspruit – Nearly 1 000 families nationwide reported that the corpses of their dead relatives had been harvested for muti before burial last year.
The cases of missing body parts were reported to the Traditional Healers Organisation (THO), but there is no clear record as to whether police charged or arrested anyone.
“About 901 bodies had some parts missing, especially breasts and genitals,” said national co-ordinator of the THO, Phephisile Maseko, on Monday. “The biggest question is, who are these people who purchase the parts? And, if we expose them, what systems are there to protect us?”
She expressed concern that in “most cases” police were involved in protecting those, often wealthy businessmen, who buy human body parts in the belief that it will boost their businesses.
Maseko said the elderly and children were particularly vulnerable to muti killings.
“People believe that if you use the genitals or hands of an old person or a child for muti, your business will make lots of money, but it’s not true,” she said.
She said traditional healers who used body parts to make muti were not true healers, but “heartless witches”.
Profession at stake
“How could a healer use body parts or remove somebody’s body parts while the person is still alive? That means you are a witch, not a healer,” she said.
“I am worried that our name is being used in the wrong way and our profession is at stake because every time such cases happen, people look at us [as if we're to blame]. We want to protect our profession,” she said.
She said the issue was raised at a meeting about ritual murders with the Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities Minister Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, in Pretoria last week.
Maseko said THO is ready to help the government try stop muti murders and expose the perpetrators of the human body parts trade.
She said most of the cases in which corpses were harvested for body parts, or 350 cases, were in Limpopo, followed by Mpumalanga where 210 cadavers had been mutilated.
International borders
“[Muti murders] are mostly happening in provinces that have international borders because the parts are being transported to neighbouring countries,” Maseko said.
At the meeting last week, Minister Mayende-Sibiya said in a statement that while African medicine was part of South Africa’s culture, this did not excuse or justify the killing of a human being to heal a person.
“We cannot be a country that lives in fear that a child, woman or man has been killed for such purposes. We have to root out this evil practice,” Mayende-Sibiya said.
She said an indaba would be held in March to address muti killings. She said government would gather all available data to better understand the prevalence, patterns and trends of the cases.
“We have to ensure that these cases are recorded correctly and ensure that our people are aware of this problem and they assist us and the law enforcement agencies to address this problem.”
- African Eye
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This world needs more astronauts and less witchdoctors.
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Witch doctor are you refering to?
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D’OH!!!!!!!
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As the soccer world cup draws nearer more body parts will be harvested. Africoons believe they can alter results, make goalkeepers, blind, score goals, see the lotto numbers, attract business/lovers/good spirits, more wives(aka Zuma), make babies, prevent babies, change the sex of babies in the womb, harvest babies, become impervious to bullets, be invisible to police and a whole shedload of other rubbish that Westerners will try to justify as a quaint little Africanisms.
When the hell did witchdoctoring become a profession? I always thought it was deviant/criminal behaviour! It is just a way of making money from incurably stupid animals.
But hey, in many ways it does actually work. If you eat the heart and sex organs of your biggest rival he wont bother you again!
TKB
Do you know that in south africa the so called traditional healers are permitted to submit claims to medical aid schemes! So now you know why your monthly contributions have doubled in the past few years and more. They have been given some formal recognition and so are classified along side the likes of optometrists, physiotherapists etc! Bizaar but sadly true. Where else in the world would this happen but in arsezania!
Traditional healers submitting claims – has that already been implemented? The medical aid companies are under strain with this global crisis, I cannot imagine they will be also able to cope with thousands of witch-doctor claims.
Another sad story about the avbuses saps are inflicting on a crime ridden south africa. DO NOT TRUST THE POLICE.
They are the biggest problem in south africa today.
Plett woman says cop raped her
A Plettenberg Bay guest house owner has accused a Kynsna policeman of raping her while his colleague allegedly held her down.
The 32-year-old woman told the police she had gone to a Kynsna restaurant with friends and left after a quarrel in the early hours of Sunday.
She said she decided to walk on the main road towards Plettenberg Bay, but saw a police vehicle in a nearby parking area.
She approached the car and asked the two policemen to give her a lift home and they agreed, she said in a statement.
“She said the driver pulled her into the car and the passenger pulled her pants down.
“She said one of the policemen raped her while the other held her down,” said police spokesman Captain Malcolm Pojie. He said a rape docket had been opened and police would make arrests after an ID parade on Tuesday.
“The officers have not been arrested but we will arrest them today if they are pointed out in the ID parade,” he said.
One officer would face a rape charge and the other would be arrested as an accomplice, said Pojie.
The George Family, Violence and Child Protection Unit is investigating the case.
Community Safety MEC Lennit Max said he was “disgusted” by the incident.
He said if found guilty, the officers did not deserve to wear the SA Police Service uniform and would face the full force of the law: “When police officers act like criminals, they will be treated like criminals,” he said.
Max urged members of the public not to lose trust in the police.
He said he would personally follow the case and ensure that the members, if found guilty, “paid for the crime they committed against a woman who trusted them”.