New Constitution moves Tanzania closer to gender parity

There is jubilation among women in different regions, seeing that the Draft Constitution includes a section that gives women the power to own and inherit land, just like their male counterparts.

Women’s activist associations are among the groups which support the idea with optimism, since the lives of women in rural areas will now improve, simply because women can use the land economically, cultivating different crops in their specific locations.

For years now, some traditional beliefs and cultures have denied women the right to own land. Some cultures also state that women should not be buried on the family land, and as a result they are buried in the bush. Speaking in Dodoma recently, the long serving politician Anna Abdallah, sounded optimistic that the true liberation for women has come, insisting that the Constitutional Assembly goes into Tanzania’s history for giving women due rights in land ownership.

“The Draft Constitution has well defined the word ‘person’ because in some communities people believe a person is a man and not a woman. This is the gender equality we have been fighting for,” she said. Abdallah observes that article 46 of the Draft Constitution now guarantees women some rights enabling them to better participate in society.

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