[link to www.americandaily.com]

The reports this week of 3-year-old Thabang Malakoane in Eatonside, South Africa, are sickening. Thabang disappeared while his mother was napping and was later found with his left hand, genitals, brain, heart, and other vital organs gone. The small boy fell victim to a lucrative black market that has been built around the sale of human - especially children - body parts and organs.

The black market is grounded in muti medicine, the traditional African system of holistic healthcare. One of the beliefs of muti is that certain body parts can enhance your luck or health. Children are especially targeted because they are young - therefore, in the beliefs of muti, they have used up very little of their good luck.

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South Africa, which is said to be one of the most developed societies in Africa, has a frighteningly high rate of muti slayings. Gerard Labuschagne, of the South African Police Service, estimates the average to be anywhere from one a month to 300 a year. The killings aren’t impulsive in nature - rather, they are commissioned specifically for a customer and carried out by witch doctors, called sangomas. Human skulls are used to bring good luck to businesses, hands are buried under entrances to stores to bring customers, genitals and placentas are used to cure infertility. Body parts - including internal organs - are often taken while the victims are alive so that the screams will make the parts more potent.

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Muti has been a prominent factor in the spread of HIV throughout Africa. One of its teachings says that if an HIV positive man has sex with a virgin - the younger the better - he will be cured, and the following of that precept has led to thousands of babies born with the disease. This specific practice isn’t only followed in South Africa - where muti is most common - but throughout the entire continent of Africa.