Human Rights International
Tanzania – protecting the rights of women and children
In Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro region, many human rights abuses affecting women and children give rise to concern. Customary law, which is still applied by traditional chiefs, exacerbates the situation as it neither protects nor strengthens the rights of these groups in need of protection.
Most human rights abuses are related to restrictions on freedom of choice, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, rape, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, forced labour, denial of matrimonial inheritance, and the unequal division of property between men and women.
The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom has supported the Kilimanjaro Women Information Exchange and Community Organization (KWIECO) since the end of 2017. KWIECO has been workingfor human rights, especially those of women and children, in the north of Tanzania for more than 30 years. FNF and KWIECO cooperate with the aim of promoting and expanding human rights work in Tanzania, especially in the Kilimanjaro region. Although various guidelines, laws and legal
mechanisms exist to promote and protect human rights in Tanzania, they are often ineffective. In addition, issues of equality are often ignored because patriarchal socialisation legitimises discrimination towards women and the abuse of basic human rights.