Preliminary survey on the root causes of attacks and discrimination against persons with albinism 2016, para. 78
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- The specificities of attacks against persons with albinism and their relationship to witchcraft have shed light on the inadequacy of domestic laws in some affected States. Criminal law and laws dealing with trafficking in persons often do not take into consideration the practice of trafficking for witchcraft purposes human body parts that are not organs. The key legislative framework, including criminal law, faces several challenges in the prosecution of cases involving the phenomenon of witchcraft, as criminal charges have often been viewed as falling short of capturing the reprehensibility of witchcraft practices and of deterring them. Witchcraft also poses problems for the rules of evidence and fair trial because of the supernatural aspect of the phenomenon. This has often resulted in the use of "the best available" laws, which provide neither adequate criminal charges nor sentences deemed proportionate to crimes of this nature. When charges are deemed weak, sentences are perceived to be lenient, or affordable in the case of fines, and their deterrent capacity is weakened because the perpetrator is still able to foresee an overall gain or profit from his or her crime.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- IE Albinism, Report to the UNGA (2016), A/71/255, para. 78.
- Paragraph number
- 78
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