A critical analysis of the law of the child act, 2009 on the protection of children against sexual violence
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Date
2016
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Mzumbe University
Abstract
For quite a long time children protection has been given less attention. As a result children are facing several violence and abuses including sexual violence. An era came when children protection began to be considered since children began to be treated as human beings in the community. That was propagated when the CRC and ACRWC came into force. Despite the fact that Tanzania has ratified these aforementioned instruments in 1991 and 2003 respectively, she took almost twenty good years since the ratifications of these instruments to enact the law specific for children. It was on the 4th November 2009 when the Law of the Child Act was enacted. The purpose of enacting this Act was to provide adequate protection to children against any form of violence including sexual violence, unfortunately child sexual violence and abuses are continuing to take place in Tanzania. The aim of this study is to critically analyse the adequacy of the Law of the Child Act in protecting children against sexual violence/abuse. The researcher deployed both library and field research. Library research involved an analysis of the problem through text books, journals, articles, reports, statutes and other relevant materials available. The researcher further conducted a field research and collected data relevant to the study, where Babati District in Manyara region was opted as area of the study. Given the objective of the research, the targeted population was 48 respondents which involved State Attorneys, Police Officers, Magistrates, Advocates, Social Welfare Officers, Medical Doctors, children and parents/guardians. Therefore, it is concluded that, the Law of the Child Act does not adequately provide protection to children against sexual violence, the institutions established under the Act are weak in guaranteeing comprehensive children protection against sexual violence and there are other factors hindering the implementation of the Child Act towards children protection against sexual violence. In concluding, possible solutions that can be used to solve this problem have been pointed out.
Description
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Laws (LLM) in Constitutional and Administrative law of Mzumbe University.
Keywords
child protection system, child abuse, sexual violence, child rights
Citation
Chicago