Umoja Wa Wanawake Tanzania
The Umoja Wa Wanawake Tanzania (UWT) (United Women of Tanzania) was in 1962 as a women's organization of the socialist ruling party TANU founded. Its first chairman was Bibi Titi Mohammed . Various women's organizations that existed before Tanzania's independence, according to the national women's council, were absorbed into this organization with more or less resistance. The headquarters of the UWT is in Dar-es-Salaam .
aims
- To bring together all women of Tanzania (Tanganyikas) in one organization
- To promote women with regard to the economic, political and cultural development of the country, as well as to set up education and health care programs.
- To work closely with the government and the ruling party
- Fight for respect and justice for women in Tanzania, Africa, and the world. To work with all women's organizations whose policies do not conflict with the policies of Tanzania.
- To cultivate diverse relationships with all of the TANU (formerly TANLT) friendly parties, in accordance with the socialist program, regardless of skin color, nationality, religion and material status.
In the programs of the UWT, the promotion of agricultural cooperatives, the so-called Ujamaa villages, was in the foreground.
history
- In 1965 the UWT mobilized tens of thousands of women to oppose an army mutiny.
- When Portugal invaded Guinea in 1970 , the UWT played a leading role in organizing protests. Many women volunteered as combatants against the invaders.
- In the course of the re-Islamization of the country, the UWT came under fire in 1988 when its chairwoman Sofia Kawawa publicly criticized Islamic laws that are directed against the independence of women.
- In 1992 Tanzania changed its constitution. The socialist one-party system became a multi-party system based on the Western model. The UWT remained as the strongest women's organization in the country.