Gender Discrimination in Tanzania - Written by SEGA Form 3 Student, Magreth
This International Women’s Day, we are excited to share with you the blog post below which has been written by SEGA’s Form 3 student Magreth. Magreth has an interest in being a broadcast journalist when she is older and has written this blog on a topic that is important to her - gender discrimination in Tanzania.
Author of this blog and SEGA Form 3 student, Magreth
Gender discrimination is a situation whereby one gender male or female is treated better or worse than the other. I chose this topic to write to you people to inform you of a few things about gender discrimination in our society in Tanzania, and this topic is based on women and girls.
This is an important topic because in Tanzania some in our society think women cannot do anything. Some in society do not bring their daughters to school because of gender issues. There is much evidence that some families are not allowing daughters to have paid jobs, and they only allow her to have unpaid jobs like cleaning, getting water, raising children, washing clothes and cooking. More proof is other parents are not allowing their daughters to go to school to get an education. They fear that if they bring their daughters to school, she will get pregnant, but boys can still go to school. Other families do not want to listen to girls, but they are listening to boys. Girls also have more rules for how they dress than boys.
I have done research, and this makes me feel bad because we are all equal. If a man can have a paid job than a woman should be able to have a paid job to get income which will help her and her family. Another thing which makes me feel bad is some people force their daughters who are under 18 years of age into early marriage. A girl is a child if she is under 18 years. When people bring their daughters to get early marriage this could lead to early pregnancy. Sometimes girls can die because their bodies are too young and are not ready to deliver. You can find men who are about 51 years old, and who want to marry young girls, this also makes me feel bad. Another thing which makes me feel bad is that girls are treated like nothing and always boys are treated better than girls. Other families bring boys to get an education, and they leave girls at home to prepare food and other activities for the home. Sometimes a girl at home is a house girl, but a boy’s job is to eat and to play. However, for a girl you can find her at home washing dishes, washing clothes, cooking, finding water from a long distance which makes her tired.
These are some ideas which can be taken to protect rights for women and girls. By bringing a young girl to get an education and making sure she knows her rights, a girl will be able to understand if her parents are not doing good things for her. She can report to the police or other places which can help her. It is especially good to provide education to young girls in some societies like the Maasai. By providing an education girls can know their rights. If women know their rights this will help them to know that they can do all that men do. They can have any job. They have freedoms of talking and speaking out, and they have rights of saying no when they don’t want to do something. Women should be empowered. Women should be given a chance to make decisions and to know their rights. People should put rules in society. Like if a parent does not bring their child to school, they should be given a punishment including going to jail or being fined for their mistake. If an adult wants to marry an underage girl, he must be punished.
The following are why women’s rights are important:
Girls will be able to go to school like boys which will help them to know their rights and help them to be what they want to be in the future.
Women will be able to do their own work like men.
Women and girls will have freedom of talking and being listened to in the family.
They will live in peace
Women will not depend on a man at home because even she will have a paying job to get money which will help her and her family.
Even men will help the wives at home because they will be able to know human rights, so they will be able to do work at home and help the family.
The family will not have an unequal division of work between girls and boys, so boys and girls will both be able to do activities at home because of cooperation and equality.
My fellow Tanzanians and other people from the world, gender discrimination makes women feel bad and makes it so we see ourselves as nothing because that is how society treats us. If you will give a woman a chance like paid jobs, she can make good things. For those who bring a girl child to school, she can study and be someone who is better in this world. So, my fellow Tanzanians, I wish for you to stop this behaviour of gender discrimination, and for those who can to provide education to your daughters to ensure there is justice in our society. In our country, many people thought Tanzania would never have a president who is a woman, but we can see now we have a woman who is president, and she is doing wonders in our country. For you women, do not give up because I believe in all we can do, and we can do better than boys. Everything is possible, and I am saying thank you to those who are providing some help to girls and women.
My last thing is that I know if you read my blog about gender discrimination it will help you to teach other people.
As a reminder:
Women and girls can do better than men.
Women and girls are all superwomen.
Women are stronger always because we do a lot of things, so I can say that we are strong in this world.