From November 25 to December 10, 2024, Tanzanians will join millions of fellow global citizens in commemorating the Sixteen Days of Activism, an international campaign that allows world citizens to reflect, act, and build solidarity around combating violence against women and children in their respective communities.
It is a period that allows actors to take stock of milestones registered towards ending violence of all forms against women and children, which robs them of opportunities to live a safe and secure life and identifies issues or challenges that need to be tackled to achieve communities where everyone has a place to contribute meaningfully to life, despite their sexes or age.
In Tanzania, there is no shortage of activities and measures taken towards ending violence against women and children. From policy, legal and regulatory measures implemented by national authorities to projects and activities implemented by other actors such as non-governmental organisations, you can fairly say that a lot is being done in the country to end the scourge of violence against women and children.
These commendable efforts notwithstanding, the situation on the ground leaves much to be desired. For example, according to the 2022 Social Institution and Gender Index (SIGI) Tanzania, more than half of all women in the country have suffered from at least one form of violence in their lifetime. Equally, violence against children has been exponentially rising, threatening the lives and welfare of youngsters.
The question then arises, why is this the case? If so much is being invested in terms of energy and other types of resources to end the scourge of violence against women and children in Tanzania, but so little seems to be changing on the ground, can we use the Sixteen Days of Activism to reflect and do a serious soul-searching about what might have possibly gone wrong?
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I did my own soul-searching, and I concluded that we are actually a very violent society, and the violence meted out against women and children, far from being the real and original problem, is just one form of such an ugly nature.
State-sanctioned violence
Take, for example, the violence exhibited by the Tanzanian state and its apparatuses, which, in my opinion, is the reference point for most, if not all, violent behaviour present in our communities, affecting each and every one of us, including women and children.
From the rampant corruption and embezzlement that go unchecked to the systemic impoverishment of people, the Tanzanian state embodies all the hallmarks of a violent state. Poor policies have subjected Tanzanians to abject poverty that robs them of their humanity by forcing them to lead lives of misery and hopelessness.
However, state violence is not only visible in the policies that the authorities implement or refuse to implement. It is also present in their day-to-day relationship with the electorates, where it seems state authorities, especially the notorious law enforcement authorities, have concluded that the only meaningful way of engaging with citizens is through violence.
Violence in Tanzania is visible throughout the justice dispensation process – from arrest, detention, searching, prosecution, conviction and imprisonment. Police would forcibly arrest people, search their houses illegally, detain them in total violation of the laws, and torture and abuse them in the process.
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Convicted criminals, probably victims of a flawed justice system, stay in an inhuman environment, not to mention being subjected to degrading and dehumanising treatments, all of which occur illegally.
No accountability
Other violent acts are occurring in our communities that you’d think state authorities would prioritise in resolving and deterring their recurrence. Still, they are left unattended, or at least appear so, consequently contributing to the flourishing of violent culture within the communities, which ends up affecting everyone, including women and children.
These include incidents of forced disappearances and abductions of people, including those critical of the government but are not limited to them, which continue to force many to live in fear thanks partly to authorities’ failure to investigate them conclusively and bring about accountability for their perpetrators. Sometimes, it is even worse than that.
For example, a prominent opposition figure, Tundu Lissu, survived an assassination attack in 2017. Seven years later, police had arrested no one for questioning concerning the crime that was committed in a broad-day light. This is just one of many cases where an apparent violent criminal act was committed, but authorities showed no interest in investigating and resolving it.
When state authorities, entrusted with the responsibilities of ensuring law and order in communities so that people can live peacefully, behave in an outright violent manner without any accountability, it sets a very dangerous precedent for members of such communities who may perceive violence as a normal thing to apply given particular circumstances.
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Our elected officials would be the last to admit it, but the popular American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was correct when he gave us the timeless moral maxim that violence begets violence. Mr King reportedly said, “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness.”
The elephant in the room
I hope that we can reflect on our state authorities’ violent behaviour in relation to King’s moral lesson in the context of the ongoing Sixteen Days of Activism to combat violence against women and children and wonder if violence the state metes out against its citizens complicates these efforts by normalising violence within our communities.
It is futile to run away from this fact. The sooner we start addressing the elephant in the room, the better, not only for the safety of our women and children but also for our own safety and survival as a society because there’s no society without women and children, and violence against them affects all of us.
The facts are that our state authorities have normalised the use of violence against the most vulnerable members of our communities, creating an environment where violence can be excused and even justified. Men feel it’s okay to beat women. Parents at home feel it’s okay to beat their children. Teachers at schools feel it’s okay to beat students and, in fact, do so legally. All this is violence and has to be boldly opposed.
In conclusion, without tracing and addressing the source of all of this violent behaviour, which, in my resolute opinion, is the state itself, we’ll be marking as many Sixteen Days of Activism as possible without seeing how these well-intentioned campaigns achieve their noble objectives of ending violence against women and children and its associated vices.
Let’s wake up now and act!
Khalifa Said is the Editor-in-Chief of Dar es Salaam-based digital publication The Chanzo. He’s available at Khalifa@thechanzo.com or on X as @ThatBoyKhalifax. These are the writer’s own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of The Chanzo. Want to publish in this space? Contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com for further inquiries.
