Widows, AIDS, health and human rights in Africa:Case study from Tanzania
/ 2004

Widows, in Tanzania and many other parts of the world, face discrimination on a regular basis, which often condemns women to a life of poverty. In the face of this discrimination, there are no national or international consensuses on the importance of changing the customary legal rules relating to widows, and on the larger question of the proper place of customary law and harmful traditional, cultural, and religious practices in the changing African society. But practices which hitherto have been taken as settled and widely accepted are now being challenged in the face of the changing socioeconomic conditions in Africa, flagrant human rights violations, the health and human rights movement, and the AIDS epidemic.