Samia: Rectify laws to benefit every citizen

Dar es Salaam. President Samia Suluhu Hassan yesterday tasked legal practitioners to carry out effective translation of the laws and take legal services to the rural areas so as to curb the rising cases of gender and sexual violence.

The President said this must include translating the laws into Kiswahili so as to make information accessible even to persons without legal knowledge.

President Hassan issued the directives as she graced the silver jubilee of the Women in Law and Development in Africa (Wildaf) here in the city.

“We need to scrutinise these laws. Do our people understand them? Why don’t they abide by them? So, let’s make these laws clear. We must ensure that even those at the grassroots level in rural areas have some understanding of what the laws say,” she said.

Asserting that effective legal framework is one way to support women’s rights, President Hassan said regardless of the developments in Tanzania there were still some customary laws that impeded females from prospering.

She said: “In Tanzania, land laws entitles every citizen to the right to occupy land. However, some bad customary laws bar women from enjoying that right. We need strong laws to ensure that women participate fully in property ownership.”

Wildaf’s board chairperson Monica Mhoja said they recognized the government’s efforts towards strengthening legal and policy frameworks to support the girl child, particularly the establishment of gender desks at police stations, however gender problems in Tanzania still persisted.

“The problem of gender violence is still big in the country,” Dr Mhoja noted.

Speaking, Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups minister Dorothy Gwajima said regardless of having vast and positive impacts on the economy, in business, agriculture, and industry, women in Tanzania still did not fully benefit from what they contributed.

“Nearly 60 percent of the food produced in the country comes from women’s work as they are the main players in agriculture. However, theyare constrained by issues like land ownership, and most of the earnings from their labour goes to their husbands,” Dr Gwajima noted.

For her part, United Nations Women Representative to Tanzania Hodan Addou said: “We must do everything in our powers to prevent discrimination, harassment and violence against women. I have no doubt that through continued collaboration and collective action, we will be able to accelerate progress in these and other areas,” she said.