Tanzania is located in Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean between Kenya and Mozambique. It gained its independence form Britain in the early 1960s. It shares borders with Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and the Indian Ocean. Tanzania also shares three great lakes—Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi—with its neighbors. The country is comprised of a wide variety of agro-ecological zones: low-lying coastal plains, a dry highland plateau, northern savannas, and cool, well-watered regions in the northwest and south. The 120 ethnic groups that inhabit Tanzania have adapted to a wide range of geophysical and climatic conditions. The specific habits, customs, and life-views of each group have been influenced by tribal traditions and alliances, European invasions, population movements over the centuries, and introduced and endemic diseases. In the late 1990s, the central political administration was moved from Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean coast to the more centrally located city of Dodoma, which lies in the middle of the central plateau. The current population in Tanzania is approximately 30 million, comprised of indigenous peoples and Pakistani, Indian, Arab, and European subpopulations. There are heavy population concentrations in the urban centers (including Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Tabora, and Mbeya), in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, and along the coast of Lake Malawi.
Position of Women in Tanzania
In many rural areas of Tanzania, tribal customs advocate a gender division of labor: women and girls take care of the household chores, small children, and livestock, and plant and weed the agricultural fields. Men prepare land for cultivation, care for large livestock, market produce, and make the important financial and political decisions for the family. As girls and women throughout the country have gained access to more formal education, however, they are challenging the customary division of labor. Similarly, where conditions of extreme poverty obligate male heads of households to migrate in search of work, women in these communities have taken over some of the hard physical labor. In many modern households in Tanzania, wives and husbands are challenging and questioning one another's changing roles. The disruptive effects of alcohol abuse, AIDS, and materialism have also placed great strains on relationships within and among families.
Among the lower socioeconomic strata, with few exceptions, women have a lower standard of living than do men. Generally speaking, boys are valued more than girls. Only women descended from ruling tribal families, successful businesswomen, or women politicians enjoy privileges equal to that of men. Among the formally educated there are conflicts between husbands and wives regarding the appropriate roles and responsibilities of each. When an activity undertaken by a woman becomes successful, her husband or a male relative will try to take control of the activity or the money it has generated, especially in rural areas.
Gender-based Violence in Tanzania - Intimate Partner Violence
Intimate partner violence is highly prevalent in Tanzania: a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001/2002 of 1,820 women in Dar es Salaam and 1,450 women in the Mbeya District found that 41 percent of ever-partnered women in Dar es Salaam and 87 percent in the Mbeya District had experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner at some point in their lives. In both areas, 29 percent of those experiencing physical intimate partner violence experienced injuries, with over a third of them having been injured in the past year (WHO, 2005).
Sexual Violence
In both sites of the above WHO study, 15 percent of women reported that their first sexual experience was forced (WHO, 2005). Many in Tanzania view rape as acceptable behavior for men and boys under various circumstances, as focus group discussions indicated. Reasons cited for rape included men not having enough money to convince women to marry or have sex with them, hormones, girls’/women’s acceptance of gifts from men, and alcohol use (by both women and men). Sexual violence does not appear to be limited to rape by strangers and acquaintances. Although not generally seen as rape, young women especially may be coerced into having sex by being lured by potential economic gains, including money and gifts.
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Harmful Traditional Practices -
- Female Genital Cutting
- Early Child Marriage
- Bride Price and Other Harmful Traditional Practices
Some focus group participants mentioned other harmful traditional practices, such as widow inheritance, in which a woman is “inherited” by her husband’s family upon his death; widow cleansing, wherein a widow is urged to have sex with a man to cleanse herself of evil spirits; harmful nutritional practices whereby, for example, women may not be allowed to eat eggs while pregnant; and so-called same-sex marriage, wherein infertile or older women pay bride wealth for a girl and force her to be a surrogate mother. Only one or two participants mentioned these practices, however. While it is important to note the practices and their potential harmful effects on women, it is not clear how prevalent these practices are. More research is needed to fully understand the contexts in which they operate.
- Trafficking
Tanzanian Laws and Policies on Gender-based Violence
Legal protection from GBV in Tanzania is limited. The Law of Marriage Act prohibits a spouse from inflicting corporal punishment on his/her spouse. The law has little impact, however, because it does not protect unmarried couples from domestic violence; and it does not define corporal punishment, thereby excluding many forms of domestic violence, such as economic deprivation (Tanzanian Women Lawyers’ Association, 2004). Legal advocates propound that a specific law on domestic violence is necessary for many reasons. First and foremost, a law especially for domestic violence would make a political statement that domestic violence is wrong. Such a law could also allow for means of punishment besides imprisonment of the perpetrator, which for many women is a threat to their livelihoods because they are economically dependent on their husbands.
Tanzania’s Sexual Offenses Special Provisions Act (SOSPA) criminalizes various forms of GBV, including rape, sexual assault and harassment, female genital cutting, and sex trafficking. However, GBV advocates point to the many weaknesses of this act: the exclusion of marital rape, except for separated couples; the need to prove penetration for rape, which can be nearly impossible to prove in many cases where forensic evidence is lacking; the failure to address other forms of sexual assault besides rape; and punishment—30 years imprisonment—that survivors may consider too extreme in rape cases wherein typically, the perpetrator is the survivor’s relative.
In 2008, civil society led an effort to sensitize health, police, and local government on their roles in addressing GBV. With funding from Irish Aid, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and Norwegian Church Aid, the Women in Law and Development in Africa’s (WILDAF) Tanzania office, which works with other legal aid organizations, has been conducting these training sessions. WILDAF is currently publishing the training materials it developed for this project. The curriculum, however, does not address technical treatment and response protocols for health providers and police.
Sexual Reproductive Health
Tanzania is home to roughly 41 million people, most of whom live in rural areas with limited health care options. In some parts of the country, a single hospital serves as many as 350,000 people, and the ratio of doctors to inhabitants is 1:50,000. Even among those who can afford it, health care can be seen as a luxury.
Women on average have 5 children (TFR 5.7), a quarter of women start childbearing early (15-19 years). This leads to adolescent pregnancy, expulsion from school (4000 girls terminate school due to pregnancy), and unsafe abortion. Approval of family planning is high, but use of contraceptives among young people (15-24 years) is still low (12% national level, 9% and 19% rural/urban areas).
Maternal mortality still high (578/100000 live births) and no significant decline occurred over the last 10 years.
More than 30% of households are below the extreme poverty line. 24% of adolescents (10-17 years) are orphans or vulnerable children (OVC). Considering the HIV prevalence by sex, it reveals that in Tanzania more women of reproductive age than men are infected with HIV (6.6% of the 15-49 years old women and only 4.6% of men of the same age group are infected with HIV)
Underlining these figures is the fact that knowledge about prevention methods is still low. Only 40% of the women and slightly more men (44%) have comprehensive knowledge about sexuality, HIV and ways of preventing it.
