COUNTRY/PROBLEM
The largest and the most populated East African country, Tanzania has a highly uneven population distribution. Over 60% of its habitants live in rural areas and have limited access to drinking water and sanitary services. By contrast, the municipal population is concentrated mainly along the seaboard in the north-east. This fact has a strong impact on the situation of women and girls.
Poverty and difficult conditions prevailing in rural areas force children to emigrate to the cities in order to find work as domestic servants in private households. It is estimated that in Tanzania, as a result of a deeply rooted tradition, over one million children, mostly girls, work as servants. Some of them fall victim to human trafficking taking place both within Tanzania and on its borders, with other countries involved. In addition, many girls run away from home — in order to avoid domestic abuse or forced marriage — as a result becoming easy prey for intermediaries involved in human trafficking.
Being far away from their families, the girls are at risk of exploitation and abuse, including sexual abuse. For their work — performed for days on end, without proper nourishment — and they have possibility to receive an education. They often do not receive the remuneration promised to them and many of them are physically and mentally abused.
ORGANISATION
WoteSawa is a Non-Governmental Organisation providing help to children who have fallen victim to domestic slavery and human trafficking. It was established in 2012 at the initiative of Angela Benedicto — an activist who herself, as a teenager, had fallen victim to slave labour as a child domestic worker.
WoteSawa is active in the Northwest Tanzania, running shelters in Mwanza and Kasulu (Kigoma region). The girls rescued from modern slavery are provided there with necessary assistance, including a place to stay, food, health care, and psychological support. Simultaneously, the organisation conducts vocational trainings. Through such, the girls acquire practical skills, e.g., in sewing, which allow them to gain a source of income. WoteSawa also acts as a mediator in reintegrating the saved children with their families and in enabling them to return to school, and it offers them legal support.
The organisation is also actively engaged in a broad range of awareness-raising actions aimed at adults who live in poverty and whose children are especially vulnerable to modern slavery, but also at those who have contact with children from poor families. It puts an emphasis on the protection of children’s rights and ensuring against their infringement in cooperation with local authorities and various institutions.
PROJECT SUPPORTED BY KF
Kulczyk Foundation supports the actions of WoteSawa for the benefit of girls who fell victim to slave labour as child domestic workers, as well as of women at risk of poverty. As part of their cooperation, the training courses in sewing reusable sanitary pads have been financed and suitable sewing machines and sewing materials have been purchased. The aim of these actions is to enable the girls to gain sewing skills. In addition, all reusable sanitary pads produced during the training courses are then handed over to girls and women who endure various forms of poverty, including period poverty.
At the same time, the awareness of menstrual health issues as well as sexual and reproductive rights is promoted. The Kulczyk Foundation and WoteSawa project is implemented in Mwanza and in Ngara District.
