Reports

Human Rights Impacts of Relocating Tanzania’s Maasai

The 86-page report, “It’s Like Killing Culture,” documents the Tanzanian government program that began in 2022 to relocate over 82,000 people from the NCA to Msomera village, about 600 kilometers away, to use their land for conservation and tourism purposes. Since 2021, the authorities have significantly reduced the availability and accessibility of essential public services, including schools and health centers. This downsizing of infrastructure and services, coupled with limiting access to cultural sites and grazing areas and a ban on growing crops, has made life increasingly difficult for residents, forcing many to relocate.

A man stands in front of a herd of cattle with his back to the camera

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  • February 3, 2020

    Tanzania’s Anti-LGBT Crackdown and the Right to Health

    This report documents how since 2016 the government of Tanzania has cracked down on LGBT people and the community-based organizations that serve them. The Health Ministry in mainland Tanzania has prohibited community-based organizations from conducting outreach on HIV prevention to men who have sex with men and other key populations vulnerable to HIV. It closed drop-in centers that provided HIV testing and other targeted and inclusive services, and banned the distribution of lubricant, essential for effective condom use for HIV prevention among key populations and much of the wider public.

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  • October 28, 2019

    Threats to Independent Media and Civil Society in Tanzania

    This report found that President John Magufuli’s government has adopted or enforced a raft of repressive laws that stifle independent journalism and severely restrict the activities of nongovernmental organizations and the political opposition.

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  • June 14, 2018

    Discrimination in Education against Pregnant Girls and Adolescent Mothers

    This report draws on extensive Human Rights Watch research on the rights of girls in Africa. Human Rights Watch examined national laws, policies, and practices that block or support pregnant girls’ and adolescent mothers’ right to primary and secondary education in all African Union (AU) member countries. Africa has one of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy in the world. African governments should urgently adopt laws and policies to ensure that schools allow and support pregnant girls to stay in school and to return to school after having a child.

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  • November 14, 2017

    Abuse of Tanzanian Domestic Workers in Oman and the United Arab Emirates

    This report documents how the Tanzanian, Omani, and UAE governments fail to protect Tanzanian migrant domestic workers. Oman and the UAE’s kafala – visa-sponsorship – rules tie workers to their employers, and the lack of labor law protections leaves workers exposed to a wide range of abuse. Gaps in Tanzania’s laws and policies on recruitment and migration leave Tanzanian women exposed at the outset to abuse and fail to provide adequate assistance for exploited workers.

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  • February 14, 2017

    Barriers to Secondary Education in Tanzania

    This report examines obstacles, including some rooted in outmoded government policies, that prevent more than 1.5 million adolescents from attending secondary school and cause many students to drop out because of poor quality education. The problems include a lack of secondary schools in rural areas, an exam that limits access to secondary school, and a discriminatory government policy to expel pregnant or married girls.

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  • October 29, 2014

    Child Marriage and Human Rights Abuses in Tanzania

    This 75-page report documents how child marriage severely curtails girls’ access to education, and exposes them to exploitation and violence – including marital rape and female genital mutilation (FGM) – and reproductive health risks.

  • August 28, 2013

    Child Labor and Mercury Exposure in Tanzania’s Small-Scale Gold Mines

    This 96-page report describes how thousands of children work in licensed and unlicensed small-scale gold mines in Tanzania, Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer. They dig and drill in deep, unstable pits, work underground for shifts of up to 24 hours, and transport and crush heavy bags of gold ore.

  • June 18, 2013

    Discrimination against Sex Workers, Sexual and Gender Minorities, and People Who Use Drugs in Tanzania

    This 98-page report documents abuses including torture, rape, assault, arbitrary arrest, and extortion. The organizations found that the fear of abuse is driving sex workers, people who use drugs, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people away from prevention and treatment services.

  • June 7, 2007

    U.S. Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the “War on Terror”

    This 21-page briefing paper, published by six leading human rights organizations, includes the names and details of 39 people who are believed to have been held in secret US custody abroad and whose current whereabouts remain unknown. The briefing paper also names relatives of suspects who were themselves arrested and detained, including children as young as seven.
  • December 1, 2003

    A Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-Related Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls in Africa

    Violence and discrimination against women and girls is fueling Africa's AIDS crisis. African governments must make gender equality a central part of national AIDS programs if they are to succeed in fighting the epidemic.

  • April 10, 2002

    The January 2001 Attack on Peaceful Demonstrators in Zanzibar

    In a welcome step, in January 2002, Tanzania's President Benjamin Mkapa announced the creation of an independent commission of inquiry to investigate human rights violations committed by Tanzanian security forces in Zanzibar a year before.
  • October 1, 2000

    Addressing Sexual and Domestic Violence inTanzania's Refugee Camps

    Burundian refugee women confront daily violence in Tanzanian refugee camps, Human Rights Watch charges in a new report released today. Wide-spread sexual and domestic abuse have left many of these women physically battered, psychologically traumatized, and fearful for their lives
  • July 1, 1999

    Forced Round-Ups of Refugees in Tanzania

    Tens of thousands of refugees, some of whom have lived in Tanzania for more than two decades, have been rounded up by the Tanzanian army and confined to camps for the past year in the western part of the country, Human Rights Watch charges in this report.