Freeze aid to Tanzania over rights violations, campaigners say

NAIROBI, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Foreign donors should freeze funding to Tanzania to press the government to scrap policies violating the rights of girls and sexual minorities, campaigners said yesterday, a day after the World Bank and Denmark said they were withholding aid.

The World Bank pulled the plug on a planned $300 million education loan to the east African nation, citing concerns over a government policy which bans pregnant girls from attending school, amongst other things.

Denmark - Tanzania’s second biggest donor - said it would withhold $10 million in aid over rights abuses and “unacceptable homophobic comments” by a senior official.

“This is a bold positive statement by the World Bank that should be emulated by other big development partners in Tanzania,” Evelyne Opondo, Africa director of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We already have too many girls forced out of formal education, robbed of their full potential and confined to the cycle of poverty. The things the World Bank is asking the government to look at are all within their power to address.”

The Thomson Reuters Foundation was not able to reach Tanzanian government officials for immediate comment.

Tanzania has one of the highest adolescent pregnancy rates in the world - around 27 percent of girls aged between 15 and 19 are pregnant, according to latest government data.