Photos by :Charles Mustapha Kayoka WE ASSUMED that violence against older persons, women mainly, is confined in Mwanza and Shinyanga regions in mainland Tanzania based on the number of elderly women killed after being accused of witchcraft practice. Witchcraft practice is defined as causing famine, drought and foot and mouth disease among cattle. It...
Pendo is a girl of 14, a cocaine addict, and a sex worker. She ‘walks’ the streets of Dar es Salaam most nights to hook up with men so that she would pay the pimp who ‘owns’ her as well as pay for her habit of cocaine snorting. She was taken from her village...
Witch hunts? WHEN TWO HUNDRED people assumed to be witches and warlocks were arrested three months ago and charged with witch craft practice in Tanzania, we watched askance and wondered how the prosecutors would be able to prove in court that the 200 detainees were really, and beyond reasonable doubt, practicing witchcraft. This follows...
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than 60% of the population living with HIV (24.7 million) only a little over 10% of its population. AIDS is a long-term illness, and getting treatment in poor countries is costly. It depletes household income, and families often have to cut spending on school fees to pay for...
The Case of Sexual Harassment against Women Food Vendors- Mama Ntilie TO EFFECTIVELY engage in the Linkages between HIV/AIDS; Gender Based Violence and Poverty in the context of advocacy and service provision, one must adopt a diverse range of strategies to bring issues which are often considered controversial and insignificant, from the periphery to...
Bint Nanguja, we daren’t ask her first name. She is known as “daughter of Nanguja”. She is the “Kingi” of spirit societies in the Temeke district cluster. ‘Nanguja’ is not her father’s name. It is the name bestowed on her because of her powers to communicate with and to control spirits. Nanguja is her...
In Tanzania’s urban areas, an estimated 87-89 per cent of domestic workers are female, ranging in age from 12 to 45. Most female domestic workers are from poor, impoverished backgrounds, mainly from rural communities. They have been put in the position of seeking employment as domestic workers because of poverty within their immediate families...
