IAAD Message from our Executive Director
IAAD is a time for reflection and celebration. Albinism advocacy groups have made significant accomplishments around the world. We have collaborated to raise awareness, combat stigma, and encourage the creation of civil society organizations that advocate for the rights of people with albinism. However, we recognize the necessary task to ensure the enjoyment of the right to health.
The theme of this year’s IAAD, “Demanding Our Rights: Protecting Our Skin, Preserving Our Lives,” is especially relevant to the unique health challenges that persons with albinism face. It emphasizes the crucial necessity for ongoing monitoring and coordinated efforts to avoid skin-related mortality among people with albinism. People with albinism must have their health and well-being prioritized. Skin cancer is a quiet killer among people with albinism; we must all be watchful and awake because the majority of our brothers and sisters are still in agony and require assistance.
We urge all governments to take a proactive stance aimed at strengthening health systems to respond to and end discrimination against people with albinism in a broader context, rather than reacting to specific skin cancer-related instances. I believe that true empowerment and promotion of persons with albinism’s health rights necessitate robust collaboration across governments, civil society organizations, albinism-specific organizations, health workers, and academia.
We ask for the full implementation of the AU Action Plan and the endorsement of National Action Plans to change the narrative of systematic prejudices in policies and legal frameworks that are preventing people with albinism from flourishing and to jealously guard the future generation of people with albinism.
In this spirit of progress, we are proud to share an Impact Report of the petition campaign that we launched during IAAD last year. Thousands of you worldwide joined our mission to make sunscreen accessible for everyone with albinism, particularly across Africa, by advocating for its inclusion on the WHO’s Essential Medicines List. The petition reached nearly 100,000 people on social media, gathered 4,242 signatures from 99 countries, and received endorsements from 75 albinism organizations globally.
We reaffirm our dedication to inclusivity, equality, and all people’s fundamental human rights as we work to create a society in which everyone feels secure and cherished, regardless of appearance.
Bonface Massah, Executive Director – Africa Albinism Network
| Download the Petition Impact Report in: |
Update (8 September 2025): On September 5th, 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) has approved broad-spectrum sunscreen to be added to the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines and the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines for Children.
