AS Tanzania joins other countries in the world to mark 16 days of activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) that runs between November 25 and December 10 each year, violence against women and children remains a global pandemic that affects about one in three women in their lifetime.
Available reports indicate that seven per cent of women in the world have been sexually assaulted by someone other than their partners.
Globally, as many as 38 per cent of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner with reports indicating further that some 200 million women globally have been subjected to female genital mutilation.
This issue is not only devastating for victims of violence and their families, but also entails significant social and economic costs.
In some countries, violence against women is estimated to cost countries up to 3.7 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – more than double what most governments spend on education.
Failure to address this issue also entails a significant cost in the future. Numerous studies have shown that children growing up with violence are more likely to become survivors themselves or perpetrators of violence in the future.
One characteristic of gender-based violence is that it knows no social or economic boundaries and affects women and girls of all socio-economic backgrounds: this issue needs to be addressed in both developing and developed countries
Decreasing violence against women and girls requires a community-based, multi-pronged approach, and sustained engagement with multiple stakeholders.
The most effective initiatives address underlying risk factors for violence, including social norms regarding gender roles and the acceptability of violence.
Every child has the right to live free from violence, exploitation and abuse. Children experience insidious forms of violence, exploitation and abuse.
It happens in several countries, but the fact is that children should be protected at homes, schools and even online.
Available data availed by the Minister for Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups, Dr Dorothy Gwajima, based on studies conducted in the country shows that 60 per cent of acts of violence against children occur at home and the remaining percentage takes place in other areas.
Many girls face various challenges based on gender and protection matters including Mwanahawa Mohamed (16), a student at Kikanda Secondary School located in Kilwa District of Lindi region.
Despite having a dream of becoming a doctor in the future, her educational journey is not easy, since she encountered many challenges that would have forced other students to give up or fail, but she has not.
”My dream is to become a doctor in future… I want to become a doctor so that I can help my fellow girls in future with various issues concerning reproductive health education,” she says.
During her journey, Mwanahawa encounters various environmental challenges which were
not congenial to her academic development.
In her academic life, Mwanahawa says she faces various challenges such as long-distance to her school where she has to walk for about 45 minutes to school and spend the same time when returning home.
“At the moment I arrive at school at 7:20 instead of 7:00 am, the time at which I am supposed to be in class. What is more, walking alone as a girl very early in the morning is very unsafe.
“So, it is better I go to school late but be safe because I have to walk to school at a time when there are other people who are also passing through the same route. If I were a boy, I could have walked alone early in the morning but the problem is that I am a girl,” she narrates during the interview.
Mwanahawa fears that going to school early in the morning on her own could subject her to gender-based violence and no one will be there to protect her at that very time.
Despite the challenges that Mwanahawa goes through in her search for education, she has managed to overcome them and she is making good progress academically in her class, the reasons that drove her teachers to choose her as a champion girl in her school.
Mwanahawa is one of the members of the Champion Club in her school. The club is coordinated by a non-governmental Organisation known as HakiElimu.
According to her, the club helps its members in building the ability to overcome sexual temptations they encounter on their way to and from school.
Apart from helping them overcome the temptations, Mwanahawa says the club also helps them to be confident and encourages them to talk to others.
“Through the champion club, I learned how to deal with the difficulties, now I understand that challenges and difficulties in life should not interrupt my goals,” she says adding that through the club, she learnt many things including sewing female sanitary pads.
“The Champion club educates us on how to sew the pads known as SODO in Kiswahili. This helps us to attend studies comfortably in times when we are in menstruation periods,” Mwanahawa says.
In the course, she says the champion club helps its member with the knowledge of Reproductive Health Education (RHE).
