CECILIA KIBADA: Tanzania’s First Female President and a Renewed Hope for Widows’ Rights

Tanzania is in a new chapter of leadership under the first female President in the person of the distinguished Samia Suluhu Hassan. She is often described as “Mama Samia.” This Swahili title means “mother” and reflects respect, kindness, warmth, and love.”

Such a milestone in leadership is a much-needed step forward for Tanzania – despite equal opportunity laws and affirmative action there is still the vivid lack of women in leadership positions. Now, having a female President has brought in a different perspective that will change our culture and challenge the all-too-common stereotype that a woman cannot hold a top position. Mama Samia has encouraged young women to display confidence; for she is a good example of what it looks like to be an effective leader regardless of gender.

Freedom of speech as a fundamental right and a vital element in a Democracy has advanced in Tanzania following the reopening of media outlets that were banned. The right of expression is essential to citizens and they must be free to challenge, criticize, and question as well as communicate freely with those that they have elected. As Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere the first President of Tanzania and the father of the nation, said “it would be both wrong and certainly unnecessary, to feel we must wait until the leaders are dead before we begin to criticize them!”

Mama Samia is a strong leader who can effectively handle challenges especially now that we are in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic over which the country seems divided. She has insisted that Tanzania cannot isolate itself as an island, and thus she has formed a committee of experts to advise the government on steps to take in the fight against COVID-19, including the use of a more scientific approach.

The Kibada Widows’ Voice

All too often, women in Tanzania face hard times at the hands of relatives upon the death of their husband. To complicate the issue even more, research indicates that widows find themselves economically and socially marginalized after the death of a spouse.

In most cases when a husband dies, his widow no longer has a place in a society, especially when it comes to matters of inheritance. Many widows have to fight for their rights so as to ensure their social and economic wellbeing.

In this fast-moving globalized world, gender-based violence, whatever the kind, is no longer to be tolerated. A check on reality casts a bitter shadow on the situation of widows in Tanzania. They are virtually invisible. Through the Kibada Widows’ Voice, I provide legal aid to widows in Tanzania and educate the public on widows’ rights through the media, workshops, publications, research activities, and statistics collection, to showcase incidences of widow violence. By so doing the Kibada Widows’ Voice is intent on accelerating nationwide development in different spheres, whilst adhering to the agenda of ‘leave no woman behind’.

Ending violence against widows requires the engagement of men in all aspects of making this violence a thing of the past. It is more effective to use men to educate other men and the society about widow’s rights and bad societal beliefs and practices.

Specific Impact of the New Presidency

As a Women’s Human Rights Lawyer in Tanzania, I trust that our President Mama Samia will take more initiative to improve respect of rule of law, to ensure equality before the law, enhance separation of powers and legal transparency in order for the country to achieve social progress, and prevent the violation of women’s human rights in Tanzania. Human rights cannot be protected in societies without a strong rule of law. Every person including those in government must be subject to the law.

Under our new President, we are hoping for the improvements in our community and in our justice system in terms of gender issues and social justice. We are hoping for the government to take more action to uphold its commitments to take appropriate legal measures to ensure that widows enjoy all human rights as enshrined in our national as well as in international laws. Both acknowledge the rights of women in Africa by clearly stating that widows are not to be subjected to inhuman, humiliating, or degrading treatment.

With Mama Samia we hope for law reform especially in the area of customary laws. As these laws stand at the moment, a widow of the deceased has no share of the estate of her husband as such estates are claimed by relative from the clan of her husband. The widow is left solely to the care of her children; however, our Constitution recognizes the basic right of a woman, regardless of her status in society, to inherit and own property in addition to such other legal privileges reserved for women under the Constitution.

We have reason to look ahead with great hope for Tanzania’s future. For widows’ – really for all women’s rights – this presidency could mark a new path of equal opportunity under the law. And with all women protected under the rule of law, there is no limit to what our communities can accomplish.

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Cecilia Kibada is a 2019 Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumna who studied Leadership in Civic Engagement at the Presidential Precinct. She is the Founder and Director of Kibada Widows’ Voice, an organization that provides legal aid for widows in Tanzania.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by IREX. The Presidential Precinct is a sub-grantee of IREX and is implementing a U.S.-based Leadership Institute as a part of the Fellowship. For more information about the Mandela Washington Fellowship, please visit the Fellowship’s website at www.mandelawashingtonfellowship.org