WOMEN’S ROUNDTABLE: NO COUNTRY HAS ACHIEVED GENDER EQUALITY

AfricaPress-Tanzania: THERE is no country that can claim to have achieved gender equality as of now because multiple obstacles, which include unchanged laws, socio-economic dictations and cultures, are still in society and confine women.

That was resolved in a roundtable dialogue in Dar es Salaam over the weekend, attended by over 100 participants from the government, United Nations and Development Partners, Women’s rights, Civil Society and Youth organisations, private sector and community-based networks.

Hosted by UN Women, Msichana Initiative, Plan International and African Women Leaders’ Network (AWLN), the platform shared different ideas on how to ensure young women and girls are at the Centre of the Covid-19 response and recovery in Tanzania.

Airing her views, Msichana Initiative Executive Director, Rebeca Gyumi said as a result of unchanged in laws, socio-economic dictations, and culture, women still remain under-valued in society and continue to work for more hours but earn less in return.

“In any pandemic, women and girls are mostly affected due to their socio-economic status in the society. Although our country did not have lockdown as a measure to contain the virus, other measures such as closing Schools, and limiting gatherings were right but had repercussions for the female folk.

“With such applied measures, although needed, people have witnessed a number of girls in communities becoming more vulnerable to violence such child marriages, female genital mutilation and teen pregnancies as per reports from different parts of the country like Mara, Loliondo, Ruvuma and Mtwara,” she pointed out.

Head of Cooperation at the Embassy of Finland and Chair of the Development Partners’ Group for Gender Equality, Ms Riikka Raatikainen supported the motion, saying it was evident that no country is perfect in terms of gender equality, and proposed that prioritization of right policies and reinforcing domestic resource mobilisation would be still rescue the situation.

She added that it is also evident that as all countries were hit by the impact of the pandemic forcing the global economy to suffer; it was still not late to rectify loopholes, which undervalue women,

“On behalf of the Development Partners, I want to mention that by now many of us have approved re-allocations, and increased funding commitments in order to respond better to the pandemic woes. Tanzania is also benefiting from these allocations made at global level,” she said.