Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA
An opposition Member of Parliament and
activists in Tanzania are urging the World Bank to withdraw a $500m loan to the
country, amid concerns over deteriorating human rights, particularly for women
and girls.
Credit: JOHN NYANGA |
In a
letter addressed to the bank’s board members, Zitto Kabwe, said he feared the
money would be used by the ruling party “to distort our electoral processes’” and
ensure an easy victory in this election year.
Kabwe,
the leader of opposition party, the Alliance for Change and Transparency, urged
the bank to suspend any loans until “checks and balances” including a free
press, free and fair elections, and the reinstatement of the Controller and
Auditor General, are restored in the country.
In a
separate letter to the bank, which is Tanzania’s biggest external lender, Civil
Society Organisations said it would be “inappropriate if not irresponsible” to
approve the loan, which is for an education project, without conditions placed
on the government that include introducing legislation to allow pregnant girls
to stay in school.
The
letter, sent anonymously because of fear of reprisals, catalogued a series of
recent crackdowns by the Tanzanian government on NGOs, the media, and
individuals critical of the government.
Under
John Magufuli, who became president in 2015, the government has forced girls to
undergo pregnancy tests and excluded thousands of them from school, said the
letter.
Magufuli was widely criticised by campaigners after he told a
rally: “As long as I am president … no pregnant student will be allowed to
return to school … After getting pregnant, you are done.”
The
government was also accused of encouraging the flogging of schoolchildren,
clamping down on family planning services and branding
them a western “plot” to reduce the population, and ignoring multiple cases of
rape and murder of women in western Tanzania.
File: Zitto Kabwe in Parliament |
Approving
the loan would deliver a “slap in the face” to women and girls, and would
represent a “full-throated endorsement of this violently misogynist regime”,
said the organisations.
The
letter calls on the bank to postpone the loan until the government has put in
place measures to demonstrate a commitment to “gender equality and the rule of
law”. The loan will be considered by the bank’s board of directors on Tuesday.
Earlier this week, Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch, which has documented the declining climate for activists under Magufuli,
called for the immediate
release of human rights lawyer Tito Elia Magoti and IT expert
Theodory Giyani. They are being held on “spurious charges”, including leading
organised crime and money laundering, the groups said.
In
2018, the bank withdrew a $300m loan to Tanzania
amid concerns over its policy of expelling pregnant girls from school.
Tanzania
has one of the highest adolescent pregnancy rates in the world, with widespread
sexual violence and girls exchanging sex for school fees, food and shelter,
according to the UN.
Last
September, the bank approved a loan of $450m, it’s first
since the withdrawal of funding in 2018, after Tanzania amended a law that had
made it illegal to question official statistics.
In
his letter, Kabwe said the loan had “emboldened” the government and made the
human rights situation worse.
The
new loan could provide “urgently needed support to Tanzania’s education sector
and schoolgirls in particular”, rights groups acknowledged in their letter, but
said the government “cannot be trusted to implement this project as designed”.
In a
country where “parliament, the judiciary, the controller and auditor general
and opposition parties had been neutered”, said the letter, the bank had an
“extra obligation” to act.
The
groups suggest the bank makes the loan conditional on legislation that affirms
the rights of pregnant schoolgirls to education, restores access to family
planning, and reforms a law allowing the government to de-register NGOs. The
letter also calls for the release of journalists and civil society activists.
Jean
Paul Murunga, a programme officer at Equality Now, an advocacy group that has
been lobbying to end school expulsions in Tanzania, urged the bank to suspend
the loan and begin a dialogue with Tanzania’s government.
“The
government of Tanzania has ignored the voices of the African civil society
groups and has given them no option,” said Murunga. “As a human rights defender
I support this action if that’s what it takes to alert the international
community and get the government to listen.”
A
Tanzanian social analyst, who did not want to be named for fear of
repercussions, said: “Girls at school are unsafe. They get beaten, sexually
harassed, and sex for grades is a common thing. The comments by Tanzania’s
leadership in the country have given an open licence to abusers of girls.
“It is really sad. The reason the bank withdrew the loan in
2018 in the first place remains, and is getting worse. There are no assurances
that the government won’t continue to shut out girls who are pregnant, in the
most humiliating way. This money will be seen as an endorsement of a
misogynistic regime.”
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