Dar es Salaam — FOR as long as I can remember, I have heard stories about sexual violence.
I scroll through Instagram and see them: A woman raped, a child assaulted, a two-year-old molested, a five-year-old violated, a young boy experiencing sexual abuse.
Sometimes the stories are so brutal that you wonder how one human being could do such a thing to another.
Yet, after seeing them for so long, I have realised how easily we can become accustomed to hearing about them.
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We hear statistics, percentages and numbers of reported cases. Somehow, the numbers begin to feel less human. But behind every number is a person.
Behind every percentage is someone whose experience may change how they see themselves, their relationships and the world around them. There is a child who was supposed to be protected. There is a woman who trusted someone.
There is a boy who may be too afraid or embarrassed to speak. There is a family deciding whether to pursue justice or protect what they call the family's reputation.
When we reduce these experiences to statistics, we risk forgetting the human being behind them.
Over the past month, I have interacted with people in different parts of Tanzania. I have been to Kigoma, Babati, Kondoa and Zanzibar, speaking with paralegals and people providing legal assistance in their communities.
I kept asking: What are some of the biggest legal challenges people come to you with?
Land matters came up. Family matters came up. Probate and inheritance matters came up. But sexual violence was also repeatedly mentioned.
What stayed with me was the pain with which people spoke about it.
There are survivors who know exactly what happened to them but are afraid to report because the person who assaulted them is a relative.
Someone may say, "My uncle did this to me," and the family immediately begins thinking about shame, reputation and what other people will say.
A child may remain silent because the person who violated her is her father, or because she does not know whom to tell. In those moments, the question is no longer simply whether the law exists.
The question is whether someone who has experienced something traumatic knows how to find justice.
Imagine experiencing something deeply traumatic and then being expected to navigate the police, healthcare services, evidence collection and the justice system while still trying to understand what has happened to you.
My research on access to justice for survivors in Tanzania highlights practical challenges, including difficulties with evidence collection, inadequate facilities, limited privacy and institutional responses that can sometimes cause further trauma.
The problem, therefore, is not simply whether laws exist. It is whether the system is accessible to the people who need those laws.
Tanzania has legal provisions addressing sexual offences and other forms of violence. There are also mechanisms through which survivors can seek assistance.
One Stop Centres, for example, are intended to bring together medical care, counselling and legal assistance. But having these mechanisms is only part of the conversation.
People must know they exist, know where to find them and feel safe enough to use them. And this is why I keep coming back to one thing: we need to talk to our children.
We should not wait until something happens before teaching a child about their dignity, their body and their right to speak. It is never too early to begin age-appropriate conversations about personal safety, boundaries and trusted adults.
A child does not need to understand the entire law to know that if someone makes them uncomfortable, touches them inappropriately or hurts them, they should tell someone they trust.
They need to know that what happened is not their fault and that they should not remain silent simply because the person involved is someone they know.
This is particularly important because we sometimes imagine sexual violence as something committed only by strangers. Yet many cases involve people already part of a child's life: An uncle, father, neighbour, teacher or family friend.
Children need to understand that being related to someone does not give that person the right to violate them.
Family relationships do not cancel a person's dignity and should never become a reason for a survivor to be denied justice. We also need to talk to parents and families.
When a child gathers the courage to say they have been abused, the first response should not be to ask why they were there, why they did not speak earlier or how reporting will affect the family. The first concern should be the child's safety and wellbeing.
Families may fear stigma, shame or damage to their reputation, but protecting a family's image should never come at the expense of protecting a child. As a law student, I sometimes think about how much of the law I would not know if I had never chosen to study it.
I know where to look for legal information. I understand concepts I once did not understand. I know that certain rights exist and that procedures are available for particular legal problems. But if I were not studying law, where would I hear all of this?
This is where I think about the people providing legal education across Tanzania. I have seen paralegals working and giving communities information about their rights. Legal education is reaching people, and that is worth recognising.
But I keep asking myself: Is the access enough?
Are we reaching everyone who needs this information? I do not think we have reached that point yet.
Perhaps everyone who has an opportunity to share legal knowledge should do so. You do not have to be a lawyer to tell someone where they can seek help.
You do not have to know every section of every law to make someone aware that they have rights.
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Sometimes one piece of information can reach one person, who can then carry it into their family, school, workplace or community.
I am part of Generation Z and a law student, and I want to contribute to making legal knowledge easier for young people and communities to understand. That is one reason I write these articles.
I am not writing because I know everything about the law. I write because I believe information should not remain only with the people who happen to study it.
We need to move beyond simply telling children to "be careful" and have meaningful conversations about safety, boundaries and where they can seek help.
We also need to educate ourselves as adults so that when a child speaks, we know how to respond. Legal awareness will not prevent every act of sexual violence.
But knowledge can help a person recognise a problem, speak up and know where to begin when they need help. It can make a complicated system less frightening at a moment when someone is already carrying trauma.
So perhaps this is the conversation we need to have. We cannot wait until a child becomes a survivor before teaching them about their rights.
Education is not only something we provide after a problem occurs. Education can be prevention.
And if you have the opportunity to educate even one person, please do it. You may never know where that information will go or whose life it may eventually touch.
