Cultural Barriers in Indigenous Pastoralist Women and Girls’ Access to Justice in Tanzania

Cultural Barriers in Indigenous Pastoralist Women and Girls' Access to Justice in Tanzania

Written on 21 May 2026. Posted in News

By Maanda Ngoitiko Sinyati for Indigenous Debates

Male-dominated decision-making structures and traditional governance systems reinforce gender hierarchies in disputes over land, inheritance, and marriage. For pastoralist women, justice entails being respected, heard, and recognized, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or literacy. It also means protection from violence, secure access to land and livestock, and meaningful participation in decision-making processes that shape community life. The gap between international commitments and lived realities remains profound.

In Tanzania's northern rangelands, justice for women is not an abstract legal principle debated in courtrooms or policy forums. It is a reality shaped by power, proximity, and voice. Justice is whether a woman can claim land after the death of her husband, whether she can speak in a village meeting without fear of ridicule or reprisal, and whether seeking protection from violence will result in support (rather than stigma). For Indigenous pastoralist women, access to justice is inseparable from dignity, survival, and the right to participate meaningfully in decisions that govern their lives.

This daily reality unfolds where traditional gender roles intersect with the unique circumstances of pastoralist life. Pastoralist communities care for vast rangelands and sustain food systems built on generations of knowledge about livestock, mobility, and communal land use. Their contributions to food security and the environment are significant, albeit under-documented, yet opportunities to participate fully in economic and political life are often limited.

For women in these communities, the challenges are even greater: expectations around household and family responsibilities, limited access to education, remote locations, and minimal representation in decision-making all make it harder to have their voices heard. Together, these factors create a gap in access to justice that is shaped by culture and tradition as well as by structural obstacles.

External Pressures and Land Insecurity

Although it might not seem relevant, distance is a major barrier, as courts and administrative offices are far from rural pastoralist communities and costly to access. Legal systems are complex, operate in unfamiliar languages, and exclude women with limited literacy. Even when these barriers are overcome, patriarchal norms restrict women's ability to assert claims. Harmful practices including early and forced marriage, widow disinheritance, and gender-based violence further limit access to justice. While dispute resolution prioritises social harmony, it often leaves women vulnerable and reinforces existing power imbalances rather than providing impartial protection.

These barriers are compounded by external pressures. Climate change, expanding conservation areas, commercial agriculture, and infrastructure development increasingly encroach on pastoralist grazing lands. As competition over land intensifies, disputes multiply. Despite their central role in managing households, food security, and livestock-related labour, women are rarely consulted (or compensated) in negotiations when land is lost. Their exclusion from land governance deepens economic insecurity and weakens their ability to claim their rights, reinforcing cycles of vulnerability.

For pastoralist women themselves, justice is understood far more broadly than legal redress alone. It is about being respected within the family, listened to by elders, and recognised by state authorities regardless of gender, ethnicity, literacy, or mobility. For them, justice means protection from violence, secure access to land and livestock, and the ability to participate in decisions that shape community futures. It also means accountability and knowing that harm will not be dismissed as a private matter or absorbed quietly in the name of tradition.

International norms support this vision. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms Indigenous Peoples' rights to self-determination, land, and participation in decision-making, and explicitly recognises Indigenous women's rights to equality and freedom from violence and discrimination. Yet the distance between international commitments and lived reality remains vast. Rights enshrined in global instruments or national laws have little meaning if women do not understand them, have limited access to them, or cannot safely exercise them in their own communities.

Grassroots Holistic Solutions: Pastoral Women's Council

Bridging the justice gap requires approaches that are culturally grounded, locally led, gender-balanced, and attentive to the everyday realities of pastoralist life. This is where grassroots organisations play a critical role. The Pastoral Women's Council (PWC) is an organisation representing more than 8,000 pastoralist women in northern Tanzania that demonstrates how access to justice can be strengthened from the ground up. Rather than treating women as passive beneficiaries, PWC operates on the premise that pastoralist women are rights-holders and agents of change. This initiative for access to justice, with a gender equity approach aimed at Indigenous Peoples, promotes:

Developing Voice and Agency: Through locally rooted dialogue and leadership training, women gain the confidence and skills to speak publicly, negotiate within households, and engage traditional leaders and government officials. This agency is evident in community-based action on land rights, where women facing displacement from tourism-related investments have helped shape more equitable outcomes through direct participation in multi-stakeholder dialogue. The women leaders have successfully challenged land dispossession, asserted inheritance rights, and intervened in cases of domestic violence, contributing to shifts in community perceptions about who has the authority to speak and to decide.

Leadership and Decision-Making: When women occupy decision-making positions, locally or nationally, issues affecting women and families are more likely to be raised, debated, and addressed. PWC's work becomes particularly visible when women enter formal leadership spaces. Fifteen years ago, only three pastoralist women were elected as Village Chairs. Now that number is 18, with a further 1,400 such pastoralist women in decision making positions in village governing bodies. Alongside individual achievement, this increase in leadership equity signals a transformation in social norms and political inclusion.

Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Norms Change: Addressing gender-based violence requires both prevention and comprehensive responses. PWC works with women and men to challenge harmful norms that normalise abuse, while also strengthening referral pathways to health, legal, and protection services. Engaging men as allies is a deliberate strategy, recognising that lasting change depends on transforming collective attitudes, not simply supporting individual survivors.

Legal Literacy and Paralegal Support: Many pastoralist women are unaware of the rights afforded to them by law or how these intersect with customary practices. PWC's Women's Rights and Leadership Forums (WRLFs) translate legal concepts into local languages and real-life scenarios, enabling women to understand land laws, marriage regulations, and protections against gender-based violence. Knowledge thus becomes a tool of empowerment, reducing reliance on male intermediaries and increasing women's confidence in asserting their claims. To further decentralise access to justice, PWC trains community-based paralegals, often women from the communities themselves, who provide basic legal guidance, mediate disputes, and connect survivors of violence to formal institutions. In areas where lawyers and courts are distant, these paralegals serve as trusted entry points into the justice system. Their presence helps demystify legal processes and ensures that women are not navigating them alone.

Land Rights and Economic Empowerment: Land and economic security are essential to women's access to justice. Without secure land rights, women's bargaining power remains limited. PWC thus supports marginalised women to obtain Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy, formalising land claims while addressing gender-based exclusion. Via Village Community Banks (VICOBA), women build savings, access loans, and develop financial literacy, later progressing to formal microfinance through partners such as Engishon Microfinance Ltd. Economic independence thus reduces vulnerability to exploitation and strengthens women's capacity to challenge injustice.

Justice as Collective Transformation

By way of example, in 2025, Vaileth Elias and Sarah Oltetia were elected as councillors, roles traditionally dominated by men. In a recent PWC "Local to Local Dialog" training session, Vaileth shared her experience: "I received training at a very early stage [in my leadership journey] and have seen great benefits from it. This gave me the courage to run for leadership alongside four men. It was a tense time and even the men seemed confused. Eventually, I was announced the winner by a large margin." This gaining of confidence and agency was confirmed by Sarah: "I now know how to call a meeting, whom to invite, and how to train people so that they clearly understand what I am communicating". She continued, "Where I am today, serving as a Councillor, is truly because of the education I received through PWC."

Despite their proven impact and scalable models, organisations such as Pastoral Women's Council face significant structural barriers, particularly in mobilising financial and technical resources. Global climate, conservation, and land-rights funding rarely reaches Indigenous and local women-led organisations directly, undermining sustainability and limiting institutional growth. If equitable access to justice for Indigenous pastoralist women is a genuine priority, funding architectures must change. Direct, long-term, gender-responsive financing is not charity: it is a strategic investment in effective, sustainable, locally legitimate justice systems.

In conclusion, the experience of pastoralist women in Tanzania challenges narrow definitions of justice. Laws and courts matter but they are insufficient without cultural legitimacy, economic security, and women's leadership. Justice emerges when women can speak, communities recognise their authority, and institutions respond to lived realities. The work of PWC, and the solidarity expressed by its members and allies, demonstrates that integrated approaches, combining legal literacy, leadership development, economic empowerment, and community advocacy, can address the root causes of injustice. Equitable access to justice is ultimately about power: who holds it, who shares it, and who can claim it.

Maanda Ngoitiko Sinyati is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Pastoral Women's Council (PWC) in Tanzania. She is a Maasai pastoralist woman and holds a degree in Environmental Studies from Kenyatta University. She has more than 25 years of experience advocating for and protecting the territorial rights of Indigenous Peoples in her region.

Cover photo: Pastoralist women in Tanzania organize to defend their rights. Photo: Pastoral Women's Council (PWC)

Tags: Indigenous Debates