Women challenged to seek elective political positions
DAILY NEWS REPORTER ,19 OCTOBER 2015
WOMEN have been challenged to compete for different political positions instead of scrambling for special seats in Parliament.
The advice has been given by an official of Ulingo, a non-governmental organization (NGO), Ms Fortunata Makafu, during a one-day workshop that brought together different secondary school students in Dar es Salaam.
The Women Legal Aid Centre (WLAC), with funding from Oxfam, organised the workshop. Ms Makafu said although women are this contesting for various political positions in this year’s general election, their number still remains low and must three-fold in the coming 2020 general election.
“Some tribes still discourage women because they think that they cannot be led by a woman. This notion must be stopped and women must remain strong in fighting for different political positions,” she said. A participant, Mr Ayoub Raphael, said most youth are not sensitised to participate on issues of national interest such as like elections.
He said during the workshop he learnt the youth need to be encouraged to take part on elections. “Before this training I didn’t know that there is a limit for presidential aspirants in using money during campaigns.
Youth must be taught civic education so that they can be patriotic to their nation,” he said. Another youth, Ms Anne Zablon, said the training enlightened them on various issues as they did not know the importance of taking part in elections.
She appealed to WLAC and Oxfam to conduct more training sessions to enable more youth understand the importance of elections. “ We appreciate this rare opportunity you gave us because it enable us to know our rights and our responsibility in our nation,” he said.
An official of WILAC, Ms Faudhia Yassin, said her organisation decided to conduct training to secondary school students to create awareness among them on their civic right and responsibilities.
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