TANZANIA: GENDER/DAILY NEWS/14/6/18 SABANews 1

ARUSHA – The issue of women empowerment has reached high levels among different players in legal and other sections of society in TANZANIA.
The development comes amid reports saying gender-based violence remains a significant problem in the country, with the State agreeing it has the potential to cripple the national economy, health, and social welfare systems.
Researchers say the brutality takes many forms, like physical, sexual, psychological, and economic violence, mainly performed against women and girls.
A number of groups have launched awareness campaigns, advocacy, and mass mobilization with local government leaders, the police, health workers, and others, to help people respond to gender-based violence.
Legal and Constitutional Affairs Minister JOHN PALAMAGAMBA KABUDI has recently addressed a Joint Conference on Gender and the Judiciary in AFRICA.
The gathering, organised, by TANZANIAN Judiciary in partnership with the WORLD BANK, has taken place at the SIMBA Plenary Hall at the ARUSHA International Conference Centre.
Minister KABUDI says the State remains committed to address gender-based violence through empowerment of judges, magistrates and other judiciary staff.
He says their ARUSHA meeting is a vital effort in issues related to the role of the AFRICAN courts.
The DAILY NEWS says Vice President SAMIA SULUHU HASSAN opened the THREE-day-long gathering, running under the theme: ‘Building an Effective, Accountable, and Inclusive Judiciary.
The meeting brought together Chief Justices, Judges, Magistrates and concerned stakeholders to discuss ways for the judiciary to guarantee the rights of women to live free of injustice and violence, as well as promote their role in social and economic development.
TANZANIAN Chief Justice IBRAHIM HAMIS says female citizens of his country start facing serious problems once their husbands die, when relatives pounce to grab property and other inheritance.
He says such are times when people get to hear women accused of killing their husbands with witchcraft, simply to smear their names in attempts to disqualify the widows from inheriting their husbands’ wealth.
Chief Justice HAMIS says there comes a time when relatives also snatch away children from their mothers, after realising the deceased would have left his fortunes to his offspring.
A 2013 report by the UN World Health Organisation says violence against women says about 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either physical or sexual intimate-partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetimes.
It says some 45-POINT-SIX percent of women 15 years and older in AFRICA have suffered intimate-partner violence, physical and/or sexual, or non-partner sexual violence or both, the highest prevalence in the world.
The WHO study says violence can affect the physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health of women, and may increase their exposure to HIV and AIDS./Sabanews/cam