A three-year project started in March 2010 in Mtwara, rural Tanzania aims at empowering Tanzanian girls to realise their sexual and reproductive health rights.
This project, in partnership with DFID, aims to address the current denial and neglect of the rights of young people, particularly vulnerable girls aged 10-18 in Mtwara, Tanzania.
Young people in Tanzania face multiple health and social challenges, many of which are interlinked. As an age group, adolescents are excluded from many public health interventions and international targets and goals, such as the MDGs. They are perceived to be free from the health risks of early childhood and far from illnesses associated with old age. In rural parts of Tanzania such as Mtwara district, young people, particularly girls, face challenges in their rights to health (specifically sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services) and education.
The challenges - Obstacles to the right to youth health:
While 60% of young people in Tanzania have had sex before the age of 18, contraceptive use is only 6%)
• Young adults and adolescents have limited access to appropriate, quality health care services, specifically for sexual and reproductive health (SRH). As a result there is a high sexually transmitted infection and HIV prevalence among young people.
• Negative attitudes of health services providers, a lack of infrastructure in health facilities and a lack of awareness of adolescent (SRH) policies and guidelines exacerbate youth health issues.
• Data on abortions is largely unknown, as abortion is illegal in Tanzania, but that which is available suggests that young women are more likely to undergo unsafe abortions and do not have access to post-abortion care.
Obstacles to the right to youth education:
• Despite Tanzania’s policies, which recognise the right of children to universal primary education, a disproportionate number of girls do not complete primary education.
• Child labour, prostitution, poverty, and the fact that girls are expelled from school if found pregnant, without consideration of circumstances and causatives are the primary obstacles to girls accessing education in Tanzania.
In 2007, 3,200 girls from Mtwara, Tanga, Mwanza, Morogoro and Coast regions were expelled of primary school system due to pregnancies . 435 of these girls were from and represented 22% of total school drop outs.
Anticipated outcomes by the end of the project (2013):
- To ensure that young people are informed and empowered to demand their rights to access and utilise quality SRH services
- To ensure that young people have a voice in influencing the policies and practices that affect them
- To assist community support structures and youth organisations in acquiring the knowledge and capacity to address SRHR among young people, especially girls aged 10-18
- To ensure that health systems are responsive to the rights of young people, and provide youth friendly SRH services, free from stigma and discrimination
- To ensure that local government policies and by-laws are responsive to the rights of young people, especially girls aged 10-18, and facilitate access to quality SRH services
- To contribute to raising public awareness on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights issues affecting women and girls in Tanzania
Find out more about AMREF's other work in Tanzania