A RECENT survey has shown that gender based violence is spiraling with pronounced cases occurring in Kagera, Mara, Mwanza and Kigoma.In most cases it is the wives who fall victim to the rage of husbands who fail to control their emotions.
But it is imperative to mention at the outset that it is also on record that a rather insignificant number of women batter their men in anger. There are, certainly, abused men in our society even though this abuse is less likely to be taken seriously.
The main reason is that the “hen-pecked” man has been the brunt of jokes in all communal settings and the situation carries a societal stigma. So, it is assumed that it is the wives who take most of the pounding and other forms of physical and emotional attacks.
Women in rural Tanzania have told the Constitutional Review Commission that the envisaged Constitution should have provisions that protect them from gender based violence, especially the cruelty that emanates from husbands.
The women complain (nearly in each region) that their husbands often batter them and subject them to untold suffering. Over and above this social misdemeanour, it is these same women who slog it out in family farms to make ends meet while their men laze around.
One of the most painful parts of being a woman in this country, the complainants say, is the fear and vulnerability to violence. Wife battering is a major public health problem in this country, but the legal curbs do not take it seriously enough.
In fact, any act of gender-based violence that results in physical, sexual or mental harm to women, including threats, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty should be rated as a punishable, criminal offence.
But wives rarely take their husbands to courts of law. Another study has shown that in Dar es Salaam, 33 per cent of ever-partnered women have experienced physical violence and 23 per cent have been subjected to sexual violence.
In Mbeya 47 per cent have complained about domestic abuse and 31 per cent have reported sexual violence.
Some of these women have experienced severe physical violence (being hit with a fist or something else, kicked, dragged, beaten up, choked, burnt on purpose, threatened with a weapon or had a weapon used against them. This is unacceptable and horrendous. For some men, violence against women is seen as a natural part of life.
However, research has shown that such violence can have devastating consequences, such as long-term health impairment for the women who experience it.
Violent acts don’t just affect women, but they also can have lasting negative impacts on children and family. Frightened children often spill out of homes and join the underworld begging and pilfering in the streets or elsewhere. Others join the labour force prematurely.
A State report says that more than 3,000 poor children have been saved from the worst forms of labour and offered alternative means of earning a living.
Some have been enrolled in vocational training institutions where they may acquire useful skills.
This is delightful news but the story does not end here.
Tanzania has a growing number of street children who are often harassed, exploited and even sexually assaulted by criminals in the underworld or incredibly, by security agents including members of the Police Force. Most street children hail from poor rural families. It is a stark reality that nearly 80 per cent of rural families are, invariably, deficient on money and food.
Some are led by outlaws and have no role models. Naturally, in such a situation it is the children who suffer most. The pangs of hunger eventually prompt some children to migrate to towns and cities in search of better livelihoods.
In other families, dire poverty prompts parents to virtually “sell” their daughters into modern-day slavery and sexual exploitation. Some give them away in unwanted marriages in exchange for a dowry. The boys join the ranks of labourers in virtual servitude.
Some children opt for street life after failing to put up with the violence in their families. It is unfortunate that some children are born into violent families where parents are enemies, to say the least.
Some parents order their schooling daughters to look for casual labour so they help support the family financially. Some of the girls join domestic servitude. Other seek menial jobs as waiters in bars and guest houses.
And there are those who join the rabid world of prostitution and fall prey to sexual predators. Marrying off young girls to husbands is an old tradition that can be traced back to numerous generations. It remains persistent today.
The practice is one of the principal causes of the now numerous pregnancy complications in young mothers. Most under-age marriages fail to work. Unfortunately, traditions are so powerful in many parts of Tanzania, especially among the Wamasai, Wakurya, Wahehe, Waha and Wahaya.
Traditions also die hard among the Wagogo and Wasukuma. Of particular concern to the State is the large number of pregnancy complications among young girls whose bodies are not yet ready to bear children.
These include the possibility of obstetric fistula. So, child marriages must be treated with the contempt they deserve. Women who have the fistula are often the very young girls who are married very early, before 15 for example, who are too poor to attend health services and try to deliver at home. These young mothers are also often ignorant about motherhood.
An obstetric fistula can occur because the woman’s pelvis is too small; the baby’s head is too big, or the baby is badly positioned; the woman can be in labour for five days or more without medical help and other unfortunate reasons. In most cases the baby dies.
If the mother survives, she is left with tissue damage to her birth canal that renders her incontinent - either of her bladder or bowel functions. This is the beginning of a medically pathetic situation for the young mother. So, schoolgirls need books -- not husbands.