A human rights-based analysis of the experiences and challenges faced by children with albinism and their mothers: Insights from the African film ‘Can You See Us?’

Abstract

Background: This study utilises the cinematic work ‘Can You See Us’ as a prism to elucidate contemporary discourse surrounding the intricate tribulations confronted by children with albinism and their mothers. Despite increasing academic research on the connection between albinism and motherhood experiences, meaningful critical discussions on this topic remain inadequately addressed within both scholarly frameworks and African policy and human rights paradigms.
Objectives: Utilising a human rights-based approach, the inquiry elucidates how systemic sufferings besiege a child with albinism and his mother. It also reveals that the challenges endured by children with albinism and their mothers are not merely individual forays but are intricately interwoven within expansive socio-political matrices that perpetuate inequity and discrimination.
Method: A mixed qualitative methodology was employed, incorporating film observation and document-based analysis.
Results: The findings of this study illuminate profound adversities confronted by individuals afflicted with albinism, encompassing destitution, experiences of corporeal and psychological maltreatment, incapacity to participate in normative social interactions, bullying, abuse and violent assaults, which can, in the most grievous of circumstances, culminate in dire outcomes.
Conclusion: We conclude that the predicaments depicted in the film are pervasive across the African expanse. These challenges ought to be recognised as transgressions against intrinsic human rights. Importantly, the extant regional action plan addressing albinism in Africa neglects the integration of a thorough gender-sensitive paradigm, especially concerning the nuances of motherhood and its confluence with albinism.
Contribution: This cinematic analysis offers a transformative paradigm for apprehending the experiences of mothers nurturing children with albinism within the African milieu.