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Poverty, discrimination inhibit attainment of gender equality
2007-05-19 09:02:01
By Rehema Mwakipesile
African women have during the past few centuries faced a host of challenges mainly due cultural and economic drawbacks.
In Tanzania women face a host of challenges which threaten the level of their social and economic advancement.
These include female discrimination, genital mulitilation, gender violence and matters pertaining to inheritance.
The Tanzania Democratic Health survey of the 2005 shows that FGMC prevalence in Tanzania now stands at 15 percent compared to 18 percent in 1996.
The decrease relates to the fact that awareness programs on such issues are increasingly becoming successful thus slowly but steadily uplifting the status of women in the country.
Gender violence is also an area which has affected the advancement of women for a long time now.
This is an area which has received a lot of attention not only on a national level but on an international level as well.
Tanzania has signed international instruments that have integrated gender related programs.
These include the observance of 16 days of activism which aims at focusing on the elimination of all forms of violence against women.
Such high levels of activism have helped high light the common problems that women all over the world face.
While commemorating the International day for the elimination of violence against women on 25 November, 2006, former United States Secretary General Koffi said violence against women causes untold misery, harms families across generations and impoverishes communities.
`Fighting this courage requires us to change the mind set which is still too common and deep seated. To demonstrate, once and for all, that it comes to violence against women, there are no grounds for tolerance and no tolerable excuses,` said Annan.
Matters pertaining to gender violence are not all new and stem from a host negative perceptions on women in general.
Some traditions not only in Tanzania but in Africa as a whole are embroiled in norms such as beating as a sign of showing love to ones spouse.
In such situations the latter can not be considered as an abuse of human rights but rather a sign of affection and love.
Such situations as well as many others have been among the many drawbacks towards gender equality.
Overall such drawbacks are being addressed through the ratification of the convention on elimination of all forms of descrimination against women.
Others include the sexual offences provision act which prohibit sexual and gender based violence.
Issues pertaining to matters such as land and inheritance rights for rural based women have been addressed to remove the stigma attached some local customs and traditions.
The village and land act of 1999 has paved way for equal representation of women in village and land institutions allowing co ownership of land by spouses as a measure of protecting family interests.
Other amendments have paved way for the use of title deeds as collateral for obtaining bank loans.
This could certainly be considered as good news to the rural woman who for a long time has been marginalized to the extent of being denied the right to participate in the decision making process.
The girl child has to a certain extent been affected by gender bias as is evident in the difference in enrolment levels.
According to a recent the millemium development goals progress report, there is still a high level of gender disparities in enrolment at upper and tertiary levels of education.
In the year 2006 female enrolment levels constituted 47.96 percent while 52.04 percent was attributed to male enrolment.
However it is stated that gender disparities dropped to a lower level due to problems emitting from early pregnancies and marriages.
The report also states the fact that attainment of gender equality is still faced with a lot of challenges which include gender dimensions of poverty discrimination and harassment of women, access to basic services such as health and education, excessive workloads, impovishment and harassment of widows.
Other factors include low participation of women in decision making, greater risk and vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/ AIDS, added household responsibilities.
The report advocates remedial solutions such as increased level of special programmes to encourage female enrolment, deliberate actions to appoint more women to high decision making posts and the scaling up of programmes that increase incomes.
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