In the summer of 2012, Lale Labuko and John Rowe traveled to the Omo Valley in Ethiopia for a very special ceremony. For the first time its history, the Kara tribe would no longer practice “mingi,” the tradition of killing children perceived as being cursed.

It was the beginning of an end, and Labuko and Rowe were there to watch it happen. And it wouldn’t have happened without them.

The two friends are the co-founders of Omo Child, a Rancho Santa Fe nonprofit group dedicated to saving and educating potential mingi victims. Rowe, a software developer turned photographer, got involved because he loves the Omo Valley and hated what was happening to its children. Labuko did it because he saw a mingi child taken away when he was just 15, and he never wanted to see it again.

“My mother had eight children. Three died of sickness and two (sisters) were killed by mingi,” said Labuko, who grew up in the Kara tribe. “When I became a father, I remembered my sisters. I said to myself, ‘This is terrible. I have to step in and solve this problem.’”

According to tribal tradition, children are cursed if they are born to unmarried parents. Or if they are born to married couples who do not have tribal permission to have a baby. Or if their top teeth come in before their bottom teeth.

If the child is allowed to live, tradition says, the curse will be passed on to the tribe in the form of drought, disease or famine. So the child is left in the bush or dropped in the river to die.

The fact that Lale Labuko was born to the right kind of parents at the tribal-approved time was just a matter of luck. There would be more random good fortune to come.

When Labuko was about 9 years old (he estimates his current age to be somewhere between 27 and 30), his father made the unheard-of decision to send his gregarious son to school. At the missionary-run boarding school, Labuko learned to read and write in English. Those skills allowed him to serve as a translator and guide to the adventurous tourists who made their way to the valley. Tourists like John Rowe.

“The Omo Valley had tribes with very little contact with the world and there were all of these rich traditions, and I just had to see that,” Rowe said, joining Labuko on the patio outside Rowe’s home photo studio. “It was so incredible that I kept going back every year and staying for months at a time. It was so rich for me because of Lale.”

Because of Labuko’s sociable personality and high standing in the tribe, Rowe was able to get an insider’s look at the tribe and its customs. So when Labuko decided it was time to do away with the most odious custom of all, Rowe was ready to help.

In 2008, after much cajoling, networking and negotiating, Labuko had convinced tribal elders that if they let him take the children away, the curses would go away with them. Within three months, Labuko and his wife were keeping watch over six rescued children in a rented house outside of the village.


