Suluhu's two years in office through the gender lens
Tanzania's President Samia Suluhu Hassan. She made history in 2021 when she was sworn in as Tanzania’s first female President and on March 19, 2023, marked her second anniversary in office.
What you need to know:
- For the past two years, she has made efforts towards advancing gender equality.
- For instance, she created the Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups to oversee empowerment of women and girls.
On March 19, 2023 Samia Suluhu marked her second anniversary as President of Tanzania.
For the past two years, she has made efforts towards advancing gender equality. For instance, she created the Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups to oversee empowerment of women and girls.
In 2021, during the Generation Equality Forum held in Paris, France, President Suluhu committed to various gender-responsive programmes. Ms Suluhu, who was then represented by Vice-President Philip Mpango, said her administration would adopt innovative approaches, such as electronic payment platforms, virtual savings and credit supply platforms, to enhance inclusion of women in financial services.
Her government is also deliberate on freeing Tanzania’s women from unpaid labour to invest the hours in economic activities, at a time when latest studies show more women (one in three) spend more than nine hours in childcare, unlike one in four women prior to the pandemic. She said they would invest in upscaling investments in reliable water supply, rural electrification and renewable clean energy.
And with access and use of affordable and relevant technologies, women in rural and peri-urban areas would be relieved of the multiple roles that consume hours they would spend in productive activities. In education, she pledged to set up girls’ sciences schools, technology hubs and vocational training centres across the country.
Ms Suluhu has since unveiled a committee to oversee implementation of commitments. However, regulations restricting teenage mothers from resuming and completing their studies remain a thorn in the flesh. In a push to eliminate the retrogressive law, Equality Now has appealed to President Suluhu to repeal the regulations.
“The Education Act, enacted through Government Notice No. 295 under Regulation 4 (Expulsion and Exclusion of Pupils from Schools), authorises the permanent expulsion of pregnant school girls and married girls from public schools,” Equality Now writes in its plea to the President.
“These regulations stand despite Tanzania setting the age of marriage for girls at 14 with the consent of the court and 15 with parental consent in its Marriage Act. This means we have 14 and 15 years olds permanently banned from accessing education by law!”
In 2021, the government issued a circular directing readmission of girls who have been out of school for the past two years. But the women rights organisation holds that the re-enrolment fails in its mission as long as the repressive regulations remain.
“Unfortunately, Your Excellency, the education regulation still stands and, therefore, whilst you are readmitting girls back on the one hand, the laws are ushering them out on the other, either by way of state-mandated child marriage or by barring them from school once they get pregnant.”
It appeals to “to take that one final and decisive step of expunging from the legal books the most unfortunate and unfair of laws that subject Tanzanian girls to marriage as children”.
