“The international women’s day together with celebrating the achievements of women, it requires us to rethink how a woman have enabling environment to unleash her full potentials”
~Martha Nghambi
GPF Tanzania, UN Women, Tanzania Women Football Association, Simba Sports Club and Simba Queens collaborated to host a discussion on Gender Based Violence (GBV) against women in sports on International Women’s Day, March 9, 2021. The dialogue urged men, women, families, professional leagues, communities and government agencies to play an active part in prevention. About 50 participants, including female players and technical benches, joined the discussion moderated by Mr. Godwin Mongi from Men Engage Network, featuring six speakers. Discussions touched on issues from labor rights of women players, GBV incidences, the safety and privacy of GBV survivors in sports. Everyone was encouraged to actively prevent GBV through raising awareness and reporting. The event launched efforts to collect data, sensitize, and build a base of allies to prevent violent incidents has continued through the year.
Mr. Amina Karum, Chairperson of Tanzania Women’s Footbal Assocation (TWFA) shed light on the lack of proper information and reporting mechanisms for women in sports. “Most of the times the victims don’t know where to report, how to report and what actions to be taken.” Speakers representing Simba Sports Club, Mrs. Barbara Gonzalez, Chief Executive Officer of Simba Sports Club and Mrs. Fatema Dewji, Matron of the Football Club Simba Queens, spoke on difficulties and benefits of women in sports. Women in sports have confronted negative stigmas and a lack of representation on traditional media and social media, but their presence has opened new possibilities.
Mrs. Lucy Tesha, Program Specialist at UN Women Tanzania expressed the need to work on Gender Based Violence in education, sports, media and public spaces. At least 40 women out of 100 experience GBV incidences, with the highest reported cases coming from Shinyanga and Mara regions. She said, “To end the GBV especially in sports, we must start by speaking-out openly.” She encouraged communities to allow women and girls to explore their full potential in new fields like sports, business and governance, and break preconceptions and anxieties that have fed the normalization of Gender Based Violence. Mr. Idriss Sultan, an artist, called on men to support women, and fight against GBV. Siima Kairuki, Board Member of GPF Tanzania closed the event, expressing her commitment to create more forums and consultative dialogues to influence change and encouraged everyone to be agents of change. “We cannot change the world overnight, rather we need to have a very comprehensive and engaging intervention strategy to fight GBV against women in sports and elsewhere.”
The event was successful to bring concerned authorities to a shared platform together to engage in healthy conversations to talk about GBV in sports, its impact and ways/ideas to fighting GBV against women in sports. The event reached about 5,000,000 through social media with joint efforts from partners and media houses that were invited to cover the events. GPW Tanzania, GPF Tanzania, UN Women and Simba Sports Club expressed their commitment to continue their work against GBV of all kinds and empower women with opportunity to showcase their maximum potentials.