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Tanzania |
WOMEN
Globalisation and the subsequent liberalization and privatisation going on in many African Countries,
has provided major foreign investors with tax relief opportunities.
Local food vendors (many of them women), on the other hand,
have to pay taxes and this marginalises them economically.
Tanzania is no stranger to this situationProfessor Marjorie Mbilinyi is Coordinator of the Rural Food Security Group, Institute of Development Studies at the University of Dar es Salaam. She is very concerned about the situation of women in Tanzania. She says the impact of privatisation and globalisation has been hard on those women who sell food on the streets of Tanzania’s towns and cities.
Even in the rural areas where most women live by means of their agricultural activities, they can no longer afford to buy what they need for farming, as prices became too high after the economic reform policies forbade providing them with subsidies.
Professor Mbilinyi says that the government’s policies which do not take local needs and requirements into consideration, makes the situation worse. Surprisingly, the same policies allow big foreign companies coming to invest in Tanzania, to enjoy five-year «tax holidays» (i.e. subsidies but under another name).
In towns, people do not see this relief extended to the poor Tanzanian women selling food on the streets of Dar es Salaam. These are being harassed by municipal policemen, to force them to pay their taxes. «So, where’s the policies’ fairness?» asks Professor Mbilinyi.
The government says that the «tax holiday» provided to foreign investors, is aimed at attracting more investors who will later pay significant amounts of badly needed revenue, to finance the government’s various projects. But women have little chance to benefit from this. Why? Because there seems to be some kind of never-ending tax avoidance circle operating. Towards the end of their tax freedom period, some investors either close down their businesses and leave, or they sell their business to new investors who again claim another five year tax holiday. So, from the economic point of view, women are the losers.
In politics
Women register better success in Tanzania’s political life. 20% of the country’s 275 Members of Parliament are women. Women also constitute 30% in local government councils. (It should be noted that Kenya only has about 7 women MPs out of about 222 Members).
But why aren’t there more women in government and what’s to stop them increasing their parliamentary presence? Ms. Johari Yusufu Akida, who is a National Executive Council (NEC) member for the ruling party Chama Mapinduzi (CCM), says the problems of women are women themselves. She says that despite women being in a majority (about 52% of the estimated 34 million Tanzanians) they are not united among themselves.
But at the heart of the problem, the factor which influences the disparities between genders, is the lack of equal education. Marriage is frequently considered to be the ultimate goal in life for girls and so it is said there is no need to invest several years of formal education for them. However, the government has reacted against this notion and has advanced the cause of women’s education.
Thus, the gap separating women and men economically, politically and socially needs to be narrowed.
- Perege Gumbo, Tanzania, May 2002 — © Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment
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PeaceLink 2002 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement