Violence Against Women
Source: Tanzania Daily News
Tanzania has recorded immense success in the "We Can" campaign that was launched in the country in 2008 and has spread to several regions.
The campaign is tailored to prevent all sorts of societal vices including brutality and violation of human rights. The campaign initially made its emergence in eastern Asia, mainly in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) research conducted in 2005 in Tanzania established that many people acknowledged the existence of domestic violence. Fifty-eight per cent of those who were interviewed said that violence existed.
However, the report further points out that 60 per cent of women who are victims of domestic violence do not take their grievances to law enforcement authorities, according to activists.
Mr Yassin Ally, who is one of the founders of "We Can" in the country, said recently in an exclusive interview with the 'Sunday News' that there are efforts by human rights activists all over the country to end all types of violence against women, but the situation still remains pathetic.
"Our priority is to target critical masses for change. These masses are made up of diverse groups. Once these groups are strengthened they become a driving force that rejects violence and figts social injustices," said an alliance member, Ms Maimuna Kanyamala, who is based in Mwanza.
She further explained that on this pretext the "We Can" campaign was started in the country with three core Alliance Members. One is in the Western part of Tanzania, which includes Mwanza, Kagera, Shinyanga, Mara and Singida. The other member is the Northern Zone which is made up of Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Manyara. Also there is the Eastern Zone (another alliance member) which is made up of Women Legal Aid Clinics (WLAC).
Women Wake Up is also emerging as a core alliance member in Central Tanzania, while the Southern Zone is still in the process. All these core members and other change makers are striving to end all types of violence against women. A delegation of 20 people from Kenya and Tanzania visited Bangladesh and India for 10 days, he said. "We discussed the challenges involved in the crusade with the "We Can" alliance members in those countries and other change agents," he said.
After this visit we started "We Can" campaign- East, which was established in Kenya and Tanzania. The Coordinator, Mr Ally, said that since they had learned about this campaign it was paramount for them to come and spread the word to others in a bid to form an alliance in the country.
"We convened two meetings -- one in Dar es Salaam and another one in Mwanza -- to discuss the way forward and formulate strategies based on our own environment in Tanzania," he explained. The time-frame, according to him was five years starting from 2008 to 2012. He said that the meeting agreed that the campaign should be run in three phases.
The first phase was spearheaded to mobilize change makers as an axis of the campaign at community level, he said. The second axis was to build solidarity within the various institutions and organizations in order to have common stance on the fight against domestic violence.
The target was to reach 1.6 million people by 2013. But Mr Ally said that currently the five regions have been able to recruit about 350,000 change makers. Under the phase two and three stages the Alliance members had to review the campaigns, since the first evaluation had indicated some areas of improvement for its success, he said.
The second phase, according to him, had targeted to re-engage and deepen change makers in terms of their numbers and capacity. He added that the 350,000 members were re-engaged and deepened their understanding and commitment on fighting domestic violence. It was also a "We Can" target to at least recruit 500,000 members by the end of 2013, which Mr Ally said, was a more realistic number than the previous 1.6 million.
Phase two of the campaign is also made up of clusters. These, he said, are structures made up of 20-50 members who have common interest and leave within the same location. Phase three is directed to institutional change, which involves institutions which can help to bring and sustain change, he said. These institutions include the police force (Gender Desk), local government (village and street chairpersons), social (acceptance) settings (collusion and bribery).
Mr Ally says that nurturing and coaching can enormously influence change. Some other influences on gender violence emanate from the family conflicts which affects students performance in the classrooms. However, he said that since the country is vast and massive, it is unfortunate that the media has been carrying out a lot of investigative journalism on corruption and other things and not gender violence.
"Some times it is because there is social acceptance of gender and domestic violence that is why no one cares," he said. Speaking to the 'Sunday News' from Mwanza, Mr Emmanuel Muhoja, who is the coordinator at Bugogwa Ward, Ilemela district, Mwanza region, gave his testimony on "We Can" campaign.
He said that after recruiting 2,600 change makers in the area it has been possible to capture more incidents of domestic violence and prosecute them. The total population in the ward is 53,243. "I don't have the statistics right now, but there are several cases already in police hands and others are in court," he said.
He said that every change maker is required to at least influence 10 people to change personally and effect changes to others in relation to fighting domestic violence. He further said that all the change makers are aware of the four types of gender based violence. These are physical violence, sexual violence, economic violence and psychological violence. The budget for 2011 and 2012 totals to 6m/-.