By Hamad Rashid / The Loyal Media.
The Union of Tanzania Press Clubs (UTPC) is implementing a campaign for 16 days of activism to combat, prevent, reduce, and eradicate gender-based violence in Tanzania.
UTPC Acting President Pendo Mwakyembe told The Loyal Media that, UTPC is engaged in the Campaign in collaboration with other gender stakeholders, the police force, communities, development officers, and social welfare officers.
“Among UTPC’s priorities is dealing with gender equality issues, so UTPC, participating in this national campaign is important because we train our member journalists to report on social issues including gender issues, and we have champion journalists from our various clubs who have been doing well in the area of gender equality news,” said Pendo.
Pendo Mwakyembe: The UTPC Acting President.
The 2023 Crime and Road Safety Statistics Report, released by the Tanzania Police Force in July 2024, stated that, between January and December 2023, 22,147 victims of violence and sexual abuse against adults were reported, 13,322 of whom were women and 8,825 were men. Incidents of violence include assault causing bodily harm, wounding, abusive language, rape, sodomy, child abandonment, family abandonment and female genital mutilation.
Why are journalists in the campaign?
According to President Pendo, TPC is using journalists in this Campaign, because the Institute is a journalistic organization with more than 5000 members participating in the campaign nationwide, to ensure accurate information and that this campaign reaches the target audience in the community.
The campaign began on November 25 and will end on December 10, 2024. It is in its second phase; the first phase was held in 2023.
However, the campaign reaches more than 5,000 people every day in Tanzania through advocacy and discussions coordinated by UTPC in various ways, including awareness-raising in Journalists’ Clubs and social media platforms, where every day UTPC provides one topic that is discussed by Campaign participants to find a concrete solution for gender-based violence.
A new report released by The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, (UNICEF), on October 10, 2024, stated that more than 370 million girls and women alive today experienced sexual violence during their childhood before they turned 18.
Community education should be given a major role in discussions on gender-based violence.
(Do you think there is any connection between lack of education and the continuation of gender-based violence?)
The above question was a topic discussed in the What’s App group by campaign participants on day eight.
Contributing to the topic, Journalist from the Morogoro region Christina Haule explained that there is a strong connection between lack of education and the continuation of acts of gender-based violence.
“The connection is very strong, and that is why many rural residents when a woman is beaten or humiliated, do not take it seriously and see it as a problem but they see it as normal due to lack of education,” said Christina.
Christina added, “It is good that education is provided through various platforms such as the media by writing articles for investigative news, village meetings where citizens can receive direct education and know the effects of acts of gender-based violence on society and reach a point of reducing or completely stopping it”
Another journalist Mohamed Issah also wrote, “Yes, there is a strong link between lack of education and the continuation of acts of gender-based violence. Lack of education leads to a “Low understanding of human rights”, because uneducated people may not know that acts of violence are wrong and that everyone has the right to live a safe and fear-free life”.
“In short, education is an important weapon in the fight against gender-based violence. It helps people understand their rights, focus on gender equality, and know how to protect themselves and get help” concluded Mohamed.
Mohamed Issah: Journalist from Morogoro Region
Jane Mwakyoma said, “Yes, there is a strong link between lack of education and the continuation of acts of gender-based violence. This is because people with poor education have little awareness of their rights and laws related to gender-based violence, this can put them under pressure or make them unable to know or defend themselves against acts of violence.”
Furthermore, Jane explained that, in areas where education is scarce, there are often social systems that place restrictions on women and girls, such as child marriage, female genital mutilation, and sexual violence, education helps to change attitudes and bring about social change by opposing these acts.
The contribution of journalists to combating gender-based violence.
(In your opinion, have journalists fulfilled their responsibility in reporting on incidents of sexual violence?)
The message above followed by the posture below (translated in Swahili) is a topic discussed in the campaign, on the 12th day.
Contributing to the topic in the What’s App group, a journalist Salmin Juma explained that many news reporters do not report the continuation of the cases but also do not report the events in detail.
“To a certain extent, we say they have fulfilled their duty because they report and the community hears what happened, but in my opinion, I like a journalist who reports in a series style, the beginning of the event, its continuation, and its end (successfully story) unfortunately a large group of journalists cut the news, you will only hear the beginning and then it disappears and you do not know what happened or its end”.
Also, right now there is a large group of young journalists, these are the ones who report quarterly or semi-annually, let’s work hard to educate each other so that we can do this work in a good context because the community wants to know, what happened at the end of the event?” Salmin concluded.
The President has asked the government to oversee Gender Policy and increase efforts to end gender-based violence in the country while, urging parents to be at the forefront of overseeing the upbringing and education of life skills for their children and youth.
In addition, UTPC has more than 5000 members from Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.
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