Tanzania LAWA Fellow 1996-1997 L.L.B., University of Dar es Salaam L.L.M., University of Dar es Salaam L.L.M., Georgetown University Law Center PhD, University of Edinburgh Legal Pluralism, Human Rights, Gender and Development Consultant Dignity Alert Consultant P O Box 65413 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Affiliations: WLAC- Tanzania Children’s Dignity Forum (CDF) The Magoke Foundation Ltd. Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF-Tanzania)

Profile:

Dr. Monica E. Magoke-Mhoja is an Advocate of High Court of Tanzania and is currently engaged in consultancy work in international human rights law, legal pluralism, gender and development matters. She is also engaged as a part-time Rights Based Approaches specialist with SAHRINGON (T) and is a contact person for UNIFEM in Tanzania.

Dr. Magoke-Mhoja is also a co-founder and currently a Trustee of Women’s Legal Aid Center in Tanzania (WLAC), a human rights organization striving to promote and protect women and children’s rights by helping to bring about gender equality in Tanzania through legal aid, legal research, networking, publications and outreach programs.

In addition, she is a co-founder and the first Chairperson of the Children Dignity Forum (CDF). The CDF is striving to contribute to the endeavors to analyze African families’ relationships in conjunction with children’s legal and human rights and put the matter on the public agenda; creating working forum to empower children, the families and the society in general, promote and reinforce children’s rights.

LAWA Experience

Ms. Magoke-Mhoja’s graduate thesis, “Impact of Customary Inheritance Law on Widows and Daughters in Tanzania: A Challenge to Human Rights Activists,” asserted that customary laws inflict physical and psychological harm on widows and daughters, arguing that these harms must be remedied with recourse to the Tanzanian Constitution and international treaties ratified by Tanzania.

During her internship at Human Rights Law Group, she performed a comparative analysis of inheritance and property rights in Africa and developed a workshop for West Africa on the topic.

In addition, she spent ten days as an observer at the second session of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in New York and prepared a guide to CEDAW and its procedures.

Additional Experience

Prior to LAWA, Dr. Magoke-Mhoja was director of the SUWATA Legal Aid Scheme for Women. She then formed Women’s Legal Aid Centre (WLAC), and became the first Executive Director of WLAC.

Following the fellowship, she resumed her work as the Director of WLAC: Her responsibilities included planning, designing, implementing and monitoring legal rights & human rights education programs; supervising all activities of teaching legal and human rights; and training paralegals throughout the country.

Through WLAC, she facilitated the establishment of a CEDAW Task Force (which comprised other 37 NGOs). The Task Force prepared the first NGO Shadow Report which was submitted to the CEDAW Committee and other stakeholders. Through WLAC she has worked to persuade the government to amend the Constitution in 2000 to prohibit gender discrimination. WLAC was selected to host the Social Watch Programme by SAHRINGON and she became the First Coordinator of the Social Watch Programme in Tanzania.

Through WLAC (as a member of Gender Land Task Force), Dr. Magoke-Mhoja has provided first-ever protection for women’s equal rights to land ownership and control through the 1999 Land Act and 1999 Village Land Act. She has provided first-ever protection against rape, FGM, sexual abuse through the Sexual Offences (Special Provision) Act No. 5 of 1998. She has helped establish 16 WLAC Paralegal Centers around Tanzania, and actively participated in Inheritance strategic litigation team at WLAC.

In 2006, Dr. Monica Magoke-Mhoja co-founded the Children’s Dignity Forum and initiated a Campaign on awareness creation on impact of early marriage in Tanzania.

Committees and Boards:

World Vision- Tanzania (2006)

ACODE – Uganda (2006)

Committee Member University of Edinburgh African Studies (2003-2004)

Executive Committee Member – Southern Africa Human Rights (2002-2003)

NGOs Network (SAHRINGON) Tanzania (2000-2002)

Mellemfolkelight Samvirke (MS) Tanzania Policy Advisory Board member (1999-2002)

Chairperson – PAB. (2000)

Africa Evangelical Enterprises (AEE)-Board member (1999-2002)

Chairperson, Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF)-Tz (1998-2002)

Feminism Activism Coalition (FEMACT) committee member (1999-2001)

Policy Advisory Board member – Women Advancement Trust (1998-2002)

Publications:

Mhoja M.E.M. 2006. Child-widows Silenced and Unheard: Human Rights Sufferers in Tanzania ( Dar es Salaam: Children Dignity Forum).

Kijo-Bisimba. H. and Mhoja. M.E.M (ed). 2006. The Nyamuma Calamity of the Evictions in Serengeti- Tanzania ( Dar es Salaam: Legal and Human Rights Center).

Mhoja.M.E.M. 2005.The Impact of Inheritance Customary Law to the Status of Windows and Daughters in Tanzania: A challenge to Human Rights Activists, in ‘Voices of African Women’ – Johanna Bond (ed.) ( Durham North Carolina: Calorina Academic Press).