Holding the Tanzanian government to account

It has been a busy week here in New York in the run up to the Government of Tanzania reporting on their implementation of the CEDAW convention on Friday.

Briefing the CEDAW committee
In addition to HelpAge International’s oral statement and written submission on older women’s rights, I took part in a lunchtime briefing with CEDAW Committee members on Thursday. Organised by the Tanzanian Women’s Legal Aid Centre (WLAC), a long time partner of HelpAge International in Tanzania, this meeting gave us another opportunity to raise our key issues with the Committee members and gave them an opportunity to ask us further questions before Friday’s session with the Government delegation. It was good to see that they were particularly interested in finding out more about the discriminatory inheritance laws and practice that have such an impact on older widows.

Holding the Tanzanian government to account
I was also really pleased with the attention that was given to older women’s rights in Friday’s examination of the Government of Tanzania’s progress in implementing CEDAW. All of our key points were raised by the Committee members: what the Government is doing to prevent the violent consequences of accusations of witchcraft; when it will complete its reform of the discriminatory inheritance laws; what the Government is doing to ensure older women can access the health services that are theirs by right; and what support the Government is providing to older women carers.

The Government recognised the discrimination many older women are experiencing but was unable to give concrete answers to many of the questions on how they would address this. So now we wait for the Committee’s concluding comments to the Government in which we hope they will make some specific recommendations on these issues.

CEDAW member championing older women's rights
In another development, I was really encouraged by the fact that one of the Committee members wants to champion older women’s rights within the Committee. I and other representatives from ageing organisations met with her to talk about how we would like the Committee to systematically address older women’s rights with every government that comes before them.

The Committee can do this by issuing a General Recommendation. These look at how particular themes or issues relate to government obligations under the different articles of the Convention. A General Recommendation on older women’s rights would look at the implications of the Convention on government obligations from an ageing perspective and therefore help ensure that the rights of older women are addressed by governments, by the Committee in their examination of government reports and by NGOs submitting shadow reports.

It is early days and these processes take time but the fact we now have a champion within the Committee is great step forward.