In its concluding observations, the Committee expressed their concern about the vulnerable situation that older women find themselves in. It is deeply concerned about the reports of intimidation, isolation, abuse and killings that can result from witchcraft accusations. It expressed concern about the delay in revising the inheritance laws and the continued existence of discriminatory customary practices, including wife inheritance and widow cleansing.
It made a number of recommendations to the Government:
- to ensure older women have full access to health and social services and decision-making processes, as well as adequate and appropriate jobs in the labour market.
- to adopt special programmes to alleviate older women’s poverty
- to adopt special programmes to combat discrimination against them
- to challenge traditional views regarding older women, particularly accusations of witchcraft
- to provide further information, including disaggregated data on the situation of older women in its next report to the Committee
- to accelerate and set a clear timeframe for the review and amendments to the inheritance laws
You can read the full text here, in particular look at paragraphs 17, 46 and 47:
So what happens next?
The Government has been asked to share these recommendations widely, including with parliamentarians, government officials, politicians, NGOs and human rights organisations. The Committee has also requested that it submit a report to them on what it has done to implement the recommendations within the next two years. The Government is then due to submit its next full report to CEDAW in 2014, when again, it must report on progress made on these recommendations.
In the meantime we can use these recommendations in our advocacy and lobbying work and continue to play a role in holding the Government to account on its rights obligations to all the older women and men of Tanzania.
Visit our website to read more about our work on rights issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment