The impact of some Social Cultural practise in Africa

Negative Aspects

1. Female Genital mutilation; According to the world Health organization is define as all procedure that involve partial or total removal of the external genitalia or other intentional mutilation of the female genital organs, whether for cultural or any other non therapeutic reason.

2. In inheritance of widows; This is practice of taking a woman (widow) after the death of her husband. This act has negative effective because it can lead to the contracting of the HIV/AIDS if one of the partners is a victim of HIV/AIDS. This act is also a violation of human right because it turns the woman as object of pleasure and sometimes the property of the inherited widow are taken by the new husband and the humans left with nothing.

3. Early and forced marriage; Early marriage is the situation where by a person gets married while he/she is below the legally acceptable age for having marriage i.e below 18 years for a boy, 15 years for a girl. Forced marriage refers to a situation in which a boy or girl is being forced by parents or relatives to get marriage to a person he/she don’t want. This practices is more common to girls than boys. Both early and forced marriages have contributed to several negative effects including marital conflicts which in turn lead to separation and divorce hence leads to an increase of street children.

4. Polygamism; this is the situation whereby on man get married to many wives. This practice can also leads to having many children that parents may fails to take care of them thus end up being street children.

5. Belief in witchcraft; Is common among some illiterate societies has greatly contributed to various negative effects. The notable effect include the killing of the innocent people include the old women with red eyes due to some allegation that they are the one ones who bewitch other people. This practice is very common in area like Shinyanga and Mwanza in Tanzania.

6. The killing of twins and handicapped people, in some tradition societies twins and other people with handicaps such as albino were being killed due to the belief that having such as people in the family or societies was a curse from the God and if such people are left the society will be facing misfortunes. However, in recent years the killing of the albinos has been associated with the belief that some of their body organs bring fortunes to people engaging in various activities such as business, especially in the mining and commercial sector. This belief has contributed much to the killing of albinos in different part of our country.

7. Paying of bride price; Is payment made to the parent of daughter or women who is to be marriage by the person or the family of man who want to marry. The paying of bride price has led to misconception that the married women has been bought just like any other items. As a result of this misconception same man in some societies tend to mistreat their wives.

8. Food taboos; These refer to practices where by women and girls are restricted or forbidden from taking same kind of food varieties especially those, which are delicious and nutritious such as eggs, liver. Chickens etc. These practices may have negative effects on omen health.


IMPACTS OF NEGATIVE ASPECT OF CULTURAL VALUE

Female genital mutilation this can lead to various effects such as;

1. Prolonged bleeding during and after the mutilation.

2. Disturbance of the natural vaginal elasticity during delivery due to the scar left after mutilation

3. Reduction of sexual pleasure during sexual intercourse

4. Spread of sexually Transmitted infection because the instrument used are not sterilized and are used by the whole group being circumcised

5. Death because of excessive bleeding and STI’S Such as AIDS/HIV

Gender biases can lead to;

· Unequal distribution of powers in a community

· Women being left out in areas of development

· Lack of spirit of competition hence poor performance

· Few women in managerial and decision making levels

· Violence and aggression.

Belief and practices of witchcraft can lead to;

· Transmission of STI'S

· Despise modern health services

· Family conflict.

· Unnecessary death

Inheritance of spouse (widow) can lead to;

· Contact of STI'S

· Conflicts

Early marriages can lead to;

· Toxemia

· Long difficult labour

· Blocked birth which may damage the bladder, vagina and womb

· Deaths

Polygamy can lead to;

· Rapid population increase

· Transition of STI'S

· Death

· Street dwellers.

Forced marriage may lead to;

· Family conflicts

· Contracting of STI'S

Bride price can lead to;

· Violation of sexual human rights

· Forced marriage with its accompanied impact

· Domestic violence

The most outstanding gender concept among other includes the following;

Gender discrimination; It is the situation in which one kind of the sex in the society is denied of its right and opportunities simply because of belong to that sex category.

Gender oppression; It is the situation whereby a certain sexual category is treated harshly or oppressed simply because it belong to that category for example giving heavy tasks and depriving of their important social needs.

Gender gap; It is an inequality in job accessibility between two different sexes. Culturally, some societies give men the first priority to job opportunities than women. This situation prevails in both public and private sector in many developing countries, including Tanzania where whereby most attractive and highly paying job are occupied by men.

Gender inequality; Is a situation whereby a certain kind of sex in a society is given priority in all aspect of life at the expense of another sex. For example inmost African societies women are marginalized in all sphere of life while men are favored.

Gender equity; This is the principle of fairness and justice that advocate gender equality such as principle include making of laws which prevent men from undermining and denying them of their rights.

Gender equality; This refers to a situation whereby there is no kind of practice which undermines a certain sex. It is the situation whereby there is equal treatment of both male and female in all aspects of their lives.

Gender analysis; It is the systematic efforts to identify, analyze, document and understand the roles of men and women within a given context. It is about who does what, who has access to and control over what, benefits from what etc.

Gender sensitive planning; It is the planning that considers both women and men in term of needs. These needs are planned equally. Generally, there are has been some effort for discouraging bad cultural practices that undermine women worldwide. Due to these efforts, the people consciousness about gender equality have been raised hence, made to see the importance of analyzing gender, formulation principle of enhancing gender equality and waged war against the multicultural practices such as child labour and female Genital Mutilation.

Gender Mainstreaming; This refers to ideas about a given gender that are considered ordinary or normal, hence, accepted by most people in societies. It is a global strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming involves insuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities, policy development, research resource allocation, planning implementation and monitoring of programmers and project.

Gender stereo typing; This refer to people perception and attitudes create by the socialization institution