“My rapist believes that attacking albinos will protect him from disease.”

Regina Mary Nlodvu says she was playing in her front yard when a man she trusted sexually assaulted her. Her first sexual abuse.

“I give myself candy and ask you to suck on my lap,” she remembers. “And when I suck, I put my hand under my dress and abuse myself.”

Regina says this was the first time she was sexually abused – at the age of eight – but not the last.

She says the same man returned to her home in Ennerdale, South Africa, pretending to visit her parents, and sexually abused and raped her many more times over the following years.

And it’s not just one, she told the BBC.

Regina says she suffered from sexual and non-sexual assault for years.

The 34-year-old said her attacker targeted her because she suffers from albinism, a genetic disease that affects the body’s production of melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color.

“It is not my intention to believe that I will rape her and never get sick,” explains Regina.

This idea is one of the many dangerous misconceptions surrounding albinism.

Now, after years of battling depression, the Zambian-born South African actress is promoting a better understanding of people living with the illness.

Although she only learned to read and write 10 years ago, at the age of 24, she also wrote and performed her own play about albinism and her own life.

The new mother wants to make sure Odas doesn’t go through what she’s going through by fighting all the misconceptions that surround this situation.

Some believe that small pieces of white albino hair bring good luck and wealth, while others believe there are even worse misconceptions – including the claim that sex with people suffering from the disease can cure HIV.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, there have also been false rumors that it can also cure the coronavirus.

Pipos with albinism are kidnapped and killed themselves because they falsely believe that body parts have magical powers.

“When I was five years old, the children went to the gate in front of our garden every day,” she remembers.

When Regina meets them and thinks they want to play, they run away.

She thought this was part of the game until one day a woman came into the garden with her little daughter.

“The little girl took one look at me and started crying,” she said. “She thought I was a monster and that really upset me.”

Regina also noticed her classmates spitting in their shirts as she passed by.

She later learned that the spitting was superstitious – something to protect her from her belief that they would have their own albino child.

Regina has problems at school because of her illness. She has difficulty seeing the blackboard due to her poor eyesight (a common feature of albinism) and can only see a small distance in front of her.

But when she complains, the teacher says there will be no “special arrangements” for her.

Regina leaves school illiterate, meaning she is unfit for work.

But in 2013 she discovered an audio book of the Bible and it changed her life.

“I freeze when I see books. I feel stupid and my whole world stops,” she explains.

“But when I started listening to audiobooks, I realized that I understood this beautiful connection between sounds and words – and a world opened up for me.”

With the help of the Young African Leaders Initiative, she was able to write and perform her one-woman play “Mary, My Voice”.

“Because I’m young, I don’t see any portrayal of albino Pippos on TV,” she says. “I want to change that.”

Someone in the audience at the Regina show, inspired by the play, paid for a private tutor to teach her the basics of reading and writing.

“I still find reading and writing difficult, but what I’m trying to say is that I’m no longer afraid of becoming as bad as I used to be,” she explains.

Regina hopes that one day she can help her little daughter with her homework.

At the moment, however, she is still suffering from the consequences of early motherhood after a difficult pregnancy.

“Look at her, look how beautiful she is,” she said as she played with her newborn daughter, whom she named Bohlale Sabelo Isabel.

Bohlale does not have albinism, but Regina says if she did, she would be “happy.”

“It’s something I never learned to love,” she says. “She’s my everything and I hope to give her the opportunities I didn’t get for myself.”