Tanzanian Women

The country that I chose was Tanzania. The Constitution of Tanzania prohibits gender-based discrimination but the country’s legislation has yet to be adjusted to support this principle. In general, legal protections for women remains limited, in part because Tanzania’s judicial authorities take into account both customary and Islamic Sharia laws. Tanzania is a multicultural society, comprising a variety of ethnic groups and different religions. Traditional views of the role and place of women still dominate, yet married women often face the greatest degree of discrimination. Tanzanian law recognizes three types of marriage: monogamous, polygamous and potentially polygamous. Almost one-quarter of Tanzanian women live in polygamous marriages where brutal violence is a daily threat. Such violence remains very widespread, and the law neither prohibits nor punishes domestic violence. More than half of Tanzanian women are thought to have been beaten by their husbands. Many men and women consider such acts legitimate if the husband objects to his wife’s behavior. A more serious problem is that many women are killed by their husbands or commit suicide after being subjected to domestic violence. The police do not generally intervene in domestic disputes. Educational opportunities for women are sparse as well with the majority of them being illiterate although the level of education for women has increased over the past decade and continues to get better giving more women a greater asy in how they live. In comparision to american women some of the variable or indices will include education and employment levels.