The Plight of the Disabled in Tanzania
Excerpts from the UN – Situational Analysis of the rights of persons with Disabilities in Tanzania
Currently there are over 3 300 000 people documented people living with various disabilities.
While Disability Councils and Federations are in place they are not always as active and consulted as desired. Many government officers lack the expertise to understand disability issues, making it hard for them to effectively engage with OPDs and other stakeholders on issues of disability inclusion. Coordination within and among government agencies to address disability affairs is weak due to a restructuring in 2015 that has led to a duplication of work by multiple government agencies addressing disability issues in Mainland Tanzania. OPDs were involved in the CRPD report drafting process but were not significantly involved in the COVID-19 response, along with many other DRR and emergency responses. Tanzania Federation of Disabled Peoples’ Organisations (SHIVYAWATA) and Zanzibar Federation of Disabled People Organisations (SHIJUWAZA), both registered as NGOs, are the national umbrella organisations. Other umbrella organisations and OPDs have emerged but are not registered as unions which creates challenges. OPDs struggle with knowledge gaps, limited human resources, technical expertise, coordination and funding. OPDs do not adequately address the issues of the multiple groups of persons with disabilities from an intersectional lens (including gender), as their membership and leadership are limited along with the OPD’s – (organisations for persons with disabilities)
Types of disabilities
According to the World Health Organization, disability has three dimensions: Impairment in a person’s body structure or function, or mental functioning; examples of impairments include loss of a limb, loss of vision or memory loss. Activity limitation, such as difficulty seeing, hearing, walking, or problem solving.
Current Situation of Persons with Disabilities in Tanzania
These challenges include lack of universal access in the structural buildings, persons with disabilities living under extreme poverty, the high unemployment rate among persons with disabilities and poor provisions of education and health services.
What are the challenges of special needs education in Tanzania?
The challenges include lack of teaching and learning materials, few trained teachers, teacher attrition, negative attitudes, barrier to information, and inaccessible environment.
What are the challenges encountered by social workers in Tanzania?
- We don’t have specific budget as well as Ministry
- Working environment are very challenged
- Unsupportive Working Facilities like specific transport
- Absence Public recognition of the profession
What is the biggest problem for students with learning disabilities?
Challenge: A student with a disability may find it difficult to sit still or focus during a lesson. Classroom decorations, classmates, and other stimuli may be distracting for a student with a disability, making it nearly impossible to pay attention to the teacher.
What is a barrier to individuals with disabilities?
Discrimination, stigma, and stereotyping are just some of the challenges that disabled people face every single day. Beyond this viewpoint problem that society has, individuals with disabilities often struggle with a built environment that excludes them from everyday activities.
BBC investigation in child trafficking in Tanzania
An investigation by BBC Africa Eye has revealed a hidden trafficking network that brings in children with disabilities from poor rural regions of Tanzania and forces them into what is nothing short of modern-day slavery, begging on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya (Citizen Digital, 2022). The documentary also exposed how criminals were buying donated wheelchairs to use for their trafficking trade. The documentary called “Forced to Beg: Tanzania’s Trafficked Kids” is the project showcasing the results of the BBC’s investigation (Wambui, 2022).
“[The documentary] shows how the magnanimity of Kenyans is exploited by criminals seeking to rake in money from the centuries-old habit that today has morphed into organized crime,” writes Mary Wambui for the Kenyan edition of Nation. The journalists reveal an evil trade that results in high numbers of children with disabilities begging in major towns in foreign countries. These children are trafficked from home against their will and with the promise of finding a better life in which they can provide for themselves. Children who fail to meet their daily target of money are subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse. Mothers unknowingly give their children to these traffickers, unaware of the painful lives they will lead in faraway towns (2022).
Once these children are smuggled into Kenya, they are not allowed to contact their families and are forced to begin their “jobs” as beggars. In fact, the children do not receive any of the money they make from their time on the streets. Instead, they are subjected to constant abuse. The investigation showcases the case of Fara, a 14-year-old victim who was tricked into being trafficked into Nairobi and forced to beg on the streets. He was unable to escape from his traffickers and was held captive for almost half his life. “They (the traffickers) deleted my mum’s number,” Fara told BBC Africa Eye’s reporters, “I would love to go home. I stayed here in Kenya because there was no one to take me home” (Citizen Digital, 2022).
Mrs. Irene Wagema, the director of Zabibu Centre, a childcare institution, was able to take in some of the children rescued and revealed that the wheelchairs they use while begging are in fact rented out to them at Sh150 ($1.27 USD) a day by someone who gets them from various benefactors. A single beggar can make as much as Sh4,000 ($33.90 USD) in a day. This money is shared between a number of people involved with the trafficking process that includes boda boda riders and minders. They move the beggars from each begging station and watch them during the day so that the earnings are protected and that the beggars do not reveal their identities to anyone (Wambui, 2022).
Beggars spend a whole day outside, no matter whether it is the scorching sun or the freezing rain. Some of the children who lack wheelchairs are forced to crawl on the streets to search for spots with high traffic so that they could meet their daily earnings. When they fall seek, they never have access to medical attention (Wambui, 2022).
Children with disabilities coming from impoverished communities and backgrounds prove a lucrative source of income. Fara’s trafficker told his family that they would get a new house and a share of the money ought to be earned by Fara, but neither Fara nor his family saw any of the money earned. Some traffickers had extensive networks, with one operating eight trafficked beggars across three different properties in Nairobi and a nearby town. The full scale of the trafficking crisis is still unknown, as there have been no authoritative studies done. However, experts estimate that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of victims representing repression, exploitation and a life destroyed (Citizen Digital, 2022).
The churches in Africa and some disability organizations have condemned the smuggling of children with disabilities for begging. “We condemn these acts of trafficking in the strongest terms possible,” said Rev. Dr. Fidon Mwombeki, the Tanzanian Lutheran pastor and general secretary of All Africa Conference of Churches. “Trafficking persons whether they are disabled or not is a crime. “We also wish to remind that these children have a God-given right to care and protection as persons with disabilities.” Urging the two governments to ensure that the problem is taken care of in an appropriate manner, Mwombeki said that the African churches are ready to offer pastoral care to the needy children (Carroll, 2022).
Due to concerns for the victims’ safety, BBC Africa Eye alerted the police of the network, and the authorities raided a few properties and freed a number of beggars with disabilities, including Fara. The two main traffickers mentioned in the documentary were arrested and remain in custody with pending criminal charges (Citizen Digital, 2022).
Mrs. Wagema points at the treatment of people with disabilities and how that led to their eventual exploitation. “The society has refused to embrace disabled children,” she said. “We refuse to see the child behind them and only see the beggar, so we hand them coins to shrug them off” (Wambui, 2022).
The documentary ends on a solemn note. Fara learns that his mother is not receptive to his wishes of returning home. “I don’t think we have a good place for you here, let me look for a place that is not too remote then you can come home. If you come here, you will suffer,” said his mother (Wambui, 2022).
To learn more about child trafficking in Africa, read WFCF’s blog titled “Tackling the ‘Brazen Trade’ of Child Trafficking in Africa.”