Critical analysis on the violation of children’s rights in Tanzania

Abstract

The first international human rights instrument to address the rights of children (the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child), which was adopted by the League of Nations was drafted in 1924 by Eglantyne Jebb (1876–1928), a social reformer and founder of the Save the Children. Children worldwide experience a varied forms human rights violations, exploitation and abuse. They are forced to fight in wars or labour in intolerable conditions; they are sexually abused or subjected to violence as a punishment; they are forced into child marriage or trafficked into exploitative conditions of work; they are needlessly placed in prisons, detention facilities and institutions. This study investigated the forms of children‘s rights violation with specific reference to Tanzania. This was done by investigating the forms of children‘s rights violation, the causes of children‘s rights abuse and analyzing the various measures put in place to protect children from rights violation in Tanzania. This study used secondary data in analyzing the variables. The findings were analyzed through content analysis. The study found that children in Tanzania continue to suffer violence, abuse and exploitation. The violation of children rights in Tanzania have been due to the lack of a common understanding as to who is a child. Poverty has come out as one of the main sources of child exploitation in Tanzania; many children who are involved in prostitution, child labour and any other form of child abuse come from poor families. Consequently, there are programmes from the collaboration by the government and international actors to protect and save children from various forms of exploitations in Tanzania.