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Women`s legal lobby now wants court on family matters
2008-03-14 09:14:42
By Gadiosa Lamtey
The government has been urged to establish a special court for dealing with family cases, especially to help widows and orphans living in difficult conditions to secure inheritance and other rights.
Women and children rights activists issued the call yesterday in Dar es Salaam at a news briefing ahead of a special campaign to be launched tomorrow to sensitise people on the importance of writing wills before they die.
Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (Tawla) chairperson Victoria Mandara, who hosted the news conference, said the campaign`s motto would be: \'Avoid unnecessary conflicts; write a will`.
According to her, if established, the court would help women and children get a rightful share from what was left by their husbands or guardians and avoid cheating, deceit and delays.
Mandara said that Tawla realised that there was a large number of widows and children who suffered because some family heads, fathers or guardians did not write down a will before they died.
``We have already proposed to the government to look into the possibility of establishing a family court…we are just reminding them because family courts would be the only way to rescue widows and orphans from suffering by helping them get their due share of the inheritance,`` she said.
Mandara downplayed the notion that writing a will was like calling for an early death, saying that the writing of one instead assured both the writer and beneficiaries of what was right for them.
Under the current situation, she added, the rights of most women and children were being violated.
She said Tawla had decided to launch the campaign as a contribution to solving the current crisis whereby widows and orphans had long been victims of suffering following the death of their husbands and fathers or guardians.
Tawla executive director Genoveva Kato said that along with the launching of the campaign, the organisation would launch a book about women and orphans.
Kato said Tawla would also organise, as part of the campaign, a march from Mnazi Mmoja grounds to the Tawla head office in Dar es Salaam.
Chief Justice Augustino Ramadhan is expected to grace the event.
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