The old backward notion that men are superior to women is a major factor behind the gender-based violence that is rife in most societies, and Tanzania is not an exception.
Men's natural physical strength should be utilised in progressive activities that require brawn and not to subject members of the so-called "weaker sex"to humiliation, pain and injury.
There are a number of traditions that perpetuate brutality against women in our country, and these are the ones that Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda warned against on Wednesday, during the official launch in Dar es Salaam of the 16-day campaign against gender-based violence.
He cited bride price as one such tradition. Once some men have paid an amount of money or a large number of livestock to a girl’s parents, they consider her a property – something they may treat any way they wish, including giving her regular beatings.
One of the most sinned against is Ms Rachel Kasuke, who broke down as she narrated how her husband and mother in-law conspired to have her four-month daughter circumcised. She ran away with her bleeding child to seek help.
The female cut, otherwise referred to as female genital mutilation (FGM), is primitive, brutal and absolutely unnecessary, and yet it’s still practised in various parts.
It is illegal but in some districts, up to 60 per cent of the women undergo the ritual, ostensibly to contain their sexual sensitivity “lest they turn promiscuous” when they become adults.
Again, in most of our communities, women cannot inherit family land and other property. Now once an uneducated girl from such a community is married, she is likely to stick to a brutal husband, since running away would render her a landless pauper.
This is one of those negative customs that must now be relegated to the dustbin of history, if we are to save women from wanton violence.
We all must do whatever it takes to protect women from this violence in our society.
