Women in Tanzania

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Women in Tanzania
Tanzania - Massai women (14518906813).jpg
Maasai women in Tanzania
General Statistics
Maternal mortality (per 100,000)524 (2017)
Women in parliament36.7% (2020)
Women in labour force81.1
Gender Inequality Index[1]
Value0.556 (2019)
Rank140th out of 162
Global Gender Gap Index[2]
Value0.707 (2021)
Rank71
Girls going to school using a bicycle

Although the roles, livelihoods, and safety of women in Tanzania have improved significantly since the 20th century, the nation remains a strongly patriarchal society in which women face high rates of gendered violence[3] and barriers to full legal rights and education.[4][5][6][7]


Legal rights and parliamentary representation[]

The nation's 1977 constitution guarantees women equal protection under the law and prohibits discrimination based on gender.[8][9]

The 1971 Law of Marriage Act set the legal age for marriage at 15 for girls and 18 for boys.[10] In 2016, a case to raise the legal age for girls to 18 was petitioned by Rebeca Gyumi, the founder and executive director of the msichana initiative, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the rights of women and girls and the right to education.[11] The high court directed the Tanzanian government to raise the legal age to 18 for girls and to align the legal age for both genders.[12] This decision was appealed by the Tanzanian government but in 2019 the court upheld its prior ruling.[13] Tanzania does not maintain official statistics on child marriage, but human rights organizations estimate that Tanzania still has one of the highest rates of child marriages woldwide.[14][15]

The Tanzanian Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act explicitly excludes marital rape as a criminal offence.[16]

In 1985, Tanzania was one of the first countries to establish a women's quota for parliament and the number of reserved-seats and female members of parliament has steadily increased since.[17][18] Female members of parliament are elected indirectly: political parties provide a list with their female candidates to the Electoral Commission before the elections and the distribution of the reserved-seats is carried out proportionally between all parties that gain more than 5% of the popular vote.This quota-system was not intended to be established permanently and female politicians can switch from a reserved-seat to a constituency seat in subsequent elections.[18] In all the past elections however, the number of women gaining a constituency seat has been significantly lower than the number of women who gained a reserved-seat.[17][19]

Since 19 March 2021, Samia Suluhu Hassan is the first female President of Tanzania.

See also[]

Human rights in Tanzania

References[]

  1. ^ "Gender Inequality Index" (PDF). HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORTS. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
  2. ^ "Data Explorer". Global Gender Gap Report 2018. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
  3. ^ Vyas, Seema; Jansen, Henrica A. F. M. (2018-11-15). "Unequal power relations and partner violence against women in Tanzania: a cross-sectional analysis". BMC Women's Health. 18 (1): 185. doi:10.1186/s12905-018-0675-0. ISSN 1472-6874. PMC 6238293. PMID 30442127.
  4. ^ Ratcliffe, Rebecca (2017-06-30). "'After getting pregnant, you are done': no more school for Tanzania's mums-to-be". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
  5. ^ "Tanzania's proposed constitution empowers women to own land". Reuters. 2014-10-08. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
  6. ^ "Human Development Data (1990-2017) | Human Development Reports". hdr.undp.org. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
  7. ^ "Data Explorer". Global Gender Gap Report 2018. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
  8. ^ "The Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania" (PDF). Retrieved 2021-12-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ "Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania 1977, as amended to 2005". constitutions.unwomen.org. Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  10. ^ "The Law of Marriage Act, 1971" (PDF). 2021-12-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ "About – Msichana Initiative". Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  12. ^ "Msuya, N --- "The analysis of child marriage and thirdparty consent in the case of Rebeca Z. Gyumi v Attorney General Miscellaneous Civil Case no 5 of 2016 Tanzania High Court at Dar es Salaam" [2019] DEJURE 14". www.saflii.org. Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  13. ^ "Victory Against Child Marriage in Tanzania". Human Rights Watch. 2019-10-25. Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  14. ^ UK, Plan International (2017-12-22). "Child marriage in Tanzania". Medium. Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  15. ^ "What we've learnt from the national survey on child marriage in Tanzania". Girls Not Brides. Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  16. ^ "Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act, 1998" (PDF). Retrieved 2021-12-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ a b "EISA Tanzania: Women's representation in the National Assembly". www.eisa.org. Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  18. ^ a b Wang, Vibeke; Yoon, Mi Yung (2018). "Switches from quota- to non-quota seats: A comparative study of Tanzania and Uganda". CMI Brief. 2018:2.
  19. ^ Yoon, Mi Yung (2008). "Special Seats for Women in the National Legislature: The Case of Tanzania". Africa Today. 55 (1): 61–86. ISSN 0001-9887.
Stub icon

This Tanzania-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

  • v
  • t
Retrieved from ""