Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is increasingly recognised as a major, global public health and development problem. VAWG is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality and is characterised by the use and abuse of physical, emotional and/or economic power and control. Through national action plans and other documents, Tanzania’s government has committed to combating the violence, but much work remains.

In Tanzania, the main challenge to manage and prevent violence against women and girls is the widespread social acceptance embedded in social norms, attitudes and practices that justify and accept all forms of VAWG. 58% of women in Tanzania believe that a man is justified in beating his wife if she burns the food, argues with him, leaves the house without letting him know, neglects the children or refuses to have sex with him.

FOKUS partner organisation Kivulini has noted that women in the Magu district are subjected to different forms of violence, including physical, sexual, psychological and economic violence. Women’s low status and bylaws concerning marriage in the Magu district are root causes of violence in the area. For instance, dowries lock women in a vicious cycle of domestic violence, since leaving would mean that the dowry has to be repaid, which their parents will be unable or unwilling to do.

In Magu it is socially accepted that when a man pays a large dowry, the woman should work hard on the farm to repay the value of the dowry, in addition to giving birth to children to compensate him. The negative implication related to dowry payments is that different forms of gender-based violence such as intimate partner violence, rape and child marriage persists in Magu. In Tanzania, forty percent of all women between 15 and 49 years have been subjected to physical violence.

FOKUS also supports a project targeting districts in the border area between Kenya and Tanzania. Here, families send their girls to the neighbouring country to undergo FGM in order to avoid prosecution in their own country. This is a collaboration with Kakenya’s Dream and MICONTRAP in Kenya.

In Narok County, 51% of the women have been subject to genital mutilation, half have been married off by the time they turn 19, and 28% of the girls between 15 and 19 have been pregnant - almost twice the average rate in the country, 15%. This contributes to low educational levels: only 58% of the women have completed elementary school and less than 24% have completed high school.