For many years women have feared to contest in elections. That comes due to various reasons which hinder back their courage.
Economic challenges, male dominance, religious restrictions, and lack of courage are to blame for women's fear to participate in politics.
However in this year women seems to have woke up as some of them have showed their interest to contest in the election.
Recognising that 2015 is the year for the general elections and taking into consideration of the women challenges to exercise their right to vote and being elected as leaders, the Tanzania media Women Association (TAMWA) in sponsorship from an initiative of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN WOMEN) has conducted training to various consultants whom are going to encourage women vie for leadership.
The aim of the training was to train teachers (consultants) whom are going to go across the country training and enhancing women knowledge on their rights and entitlements and explore the challenges and opportunities available for them to take leadership positions at all levels.
During the three days training, participants were taken through the general understanding of women rights and entitlements, women leadership, violence against women and how to access justice. Specifically, participants were taken through the international and national legal framework that provides protection of women rights and freedom from violence such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and the African Charter for Human and Peoples Rights, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on Rights of Women in Africa.
Participants were taken through the history of struggles and movements women went through in claiming their rights and different initiatives the nation has put in place to ensure that women rights are guaranteed and protected.
Specific topics covered through the training were;-Violence against women and different forms of violence, Opportunities and challenges in the legal framework in protecting women rights, Women Leadership existing challenges and opportunities
However, participants were asked to reflect on the existing challenges and draw examples from different cases related to violence against women and girls and issue of women leadership within their localities and further analyse as to whether there are sufficient efforts taken by communities, local leaders and the nation to adequately address and protect women and girls rights.
From the discussions, some of the emerging issues which the participants discussed strongly include the challenge of representation of women in leadership position at all levels. A number of challenges were raised as constraint for women to run for leadership positions including:
Low understanding among women on the rights and the opportunities set by the laws and policies, Limited financial status among women for campaigning, un-democratic elections influenced by corruption where in most cases men are using their financial status to buy votes.
Others are lack of confidence among women which hold them back to compete with men and make strong campaigns, Workload contributed by domestic responsibilities including taking care of family and children does not provide time for women to engage and contest for the leadership positions and Limited access to information limits women to make informed decisions.
Speaking during the training, participants showed their commitment to ensure that they are totally going to change women’s attitudes on elections this year thus making them compete.
A teacher from Shamian Secondary School in Zanzibar Adhra Ally said that Tanzanians will witness wonders in this year election as women will vie in various leadership levels.
“We are going to totally change women mindset and attitude in the country thus making them recognise that competing for leadership is their right,” she said.
She added that by recognising that 2015 is the year for the general elections and taking into consideration that they have the right to vote and being elected as leaders, then it will be easier for them to utilise the opportunities.
For his part a TAMWA representative-Zanzibar Mohammed Ali Abdallah said that women are going to be trained on how to tolerate in politics and how to present their commitment in solving people’s problems.
According to him, many women lack confidence something which hold them back to compete with men and make strong campaigns.
Another consultant Dinna Mbaga said low understanding among women on the rights and the opportunities set by the laws and policies is one of the challenges