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Social participation is one of the main strategies for teaching children and imparting to them problem solving skills, fostering self-confidence and making them feel valued in the family and community. This study aimed to examine the extent to which social impacts their self-esteem, with particular focus on children with cognitive disability among African families. The study was conducted in Dar es Salaam region, specifically in Ilala Municipality in Tanzania. The study adopted the qualitative approach. The target population was children with cognitive disability, their parents and included parents with no children with disabilities, neighborhood, community members and community leaders. The total number of respondents in the study was 66. The study was based on exploratory design which required the researcher to use different methods of data collection, including informal interviews, observations, and focus group discussions. Social participation was measured in terms of the frequency with which a child participated in family activities and how frequently the family members paid attention and listened to them. On the other hand, self-esteem was measured in terms of the observed level of confidence demonstrated by the children as they performed or participated in activities at family level. The main findings of the study were that there was minimal frequency at which children with cognitive disability participated and interacted in family chores. There was also minimal frequency at which children were listened to by the members of their families. The study noted that, the observations made were mainly due to the social environment in which the children lived. An unfriendly environment was one of the main causes of low self-confidence and low self-esteem among the children with cognitive disability. The study concludes that a child’s self-esteem is a product of his/her social living environment. The study recommends that policy makers involved in children’s social welfare do all they can to encourage parents and other family members to change their current mind sets and outlooks regarding children with cognitive and other mental disabilities as they while taking advantage of available social welfare support services, psychotherapy services and involving other stakeholders in children’s welfare in the alleviation of socially unacceptable disregard, low treatment and general lack of concern for the proper upbringing, care and support of all children with particular focus on those with cognitive or mental disabilities.

Gender equality in education has been an issue of interest in developing strategies for many countries across the world whereas gender issues have been integrated into the world development agendas. Despite efforts made to achieve gender equality in education, few countries worldwide have attained full gender parity in secondary education. Tanzania like other SSA countries has worked hard to achieve gender equality in education as given by EFA goal number 5, MDG goal number 3 and currently SDG goal number 5. However, the problem of girls dropping out early from school and poor academic performance continues to be prevalent (URT, 2016). Long school distance is pointed out as one of the factors influencing gender inequality in secondary education. This study, therefore, examined the effects of school distance on girls’ education and its influence on gender inequality in secondary education. The study was guided by three specific objectives, which were carried out through Cross-Sectional - Convergent Parallel Mixed methods research design to allow simultaneous collection and merging of quantitative and qualitative data. The sample was obtained by using simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques making a total of 101 sample sizes, comprising 79 respondents for quantitative data and 22 for qualitative information. Data analysis involved thematic analysis for qualitative data and descriptive statistics for quantitative findings. Study findings revealed that girls are more vulnerable to the problem of long school distances than boys because of biological formation and socially constructed beliefs about gender roles. The study findings noted that school distance encourages the prevalence of sexual harassment, early sexual relations and teenage pregnancy among school girls all of which lead to poor academic performance and or school dropout. Additionally, this study indicated that school distance coupled with the burden of domestic chores negatively affects girls’ school attendance, classroom learning and academic performance. This study, therefore, concludes that long school distance is one among main factors that affect girls’ education and contribute to the persistence of gender disparities in secondary education. To resolve the problem, this study recommends on the introduction of education PPPs so as to merge efforts among education stakeholders in building school hostels in every community secondary school in the country and fully furnish them with the required facilities. Article visualizations

This paper examined the strategies for preventing and responding to sexual violence against children in Rombo district, Tanzania. Sexual violence against children (SVAC) remains a major concern in many countries across the globe and in developing countries such as Tanzania. The SVAC encompasses a range of offenses such as completed non-consensual sex acts such as rape, attempted non-consensual sex acts, abusive sexual contacts such as unwanted sexual touching and non-contact sexual abuse. Studies have been conducted to assess strategies to prevent and respond to sexual violence against children. However, studies that focus on examining the strategies and how they are used by Community Based Child Protection Mechanisms (CBCPMs) are still limited in Tanzania. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the strategies used by CB-CPMs to prevent and respond to sexual violence against children in Rombo District, Tanzania. A mixed methods study was conducted involving 158 members of CBCPMs. A total of 108 responded to a questionnaire, 4 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted involving 40 members of CBCPMs and 10 Key Informant Interviews(KIIs) were conducted to complement data collected through questionnaire. Descriptive data analysis was conducted with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 23. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic content analysis. The study concludes that awareness raising, provision of advice, communication, identification of children, referral of abused children, mapping and monitoring of children had effects on combating SVAC. The study revealed that CBCPMs have improved situation of SVAC and child protection environment in Rombo district. Therefore, study recommends that, the government should support CBCPMs through funding, monitoring and capacity building in order to strengthen their skills to combat SVAC. The study also recommends that more awareness raising should be carried out to the community in order to address sexual violence against children.

This paper focused on analysis of emergence of criminal groups in Dar es Salaam city and Zanzibar town. Data collection was based on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Content analysis was used in analysis of data collected from the study. The study findings revealed that youths are vulnerable and susceptible to criminal activities due to corruption, fake promises from politicians, education systems, laxity of parental or guardians’ care and inspiration of children to live luxurious life. In addition, the study recommended to take proper moves that police operation and other government authorities undertake on use of force that cannot end such societal challenges. Instead, the government should provide education system, which is skilled oriented to enable young people to employ themselves. In addition, more efforts are needed to fight corruption from low level to high level of government system.

The study was meant to investigate challenges facing police gender and children's desks in reduction of gender-based violence and violence against children in Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam region in Tanzania. Specifically, this study sought to identify challenges facing gender desks in Kinondoni District and sought to examine the manner such challenges have affected practice or operations of gender desks in the area. The study took place in Kinondoni district as a case study strategy because the area had experienced many forms of violence incidences compared to other districts around Mainland Tanzania and Tanzania Zanzibar. The study design used descriptive mixed research design where both qualitative and quantitative data were used. Simple random sampling procedure was used to get respondents. Data were collected by using questionnaires, interviews and documentary review. The study results showed that insufficient number of police officers, poor selection of gender desk officers, gender and children desk officers performed other police duties and lack of budget to operate gender desk programs for building offices were among the challenging of gender desk. It is recommended that police force should have special funds for gender and children’s desks that will go towards building new offices, undertake training of officers and provide means of transport as well as required modern equipment.

Claudin gene expression is frequently altered in human cancers. Our aim was to improve the cytology diagnosis of malignancy in serous fluids with the quantification of claudins compared with various classic molecular markers using real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method. Peritoneal or pleural effusions of 56 patients were assessed as malignant from histological analysis and 19 as benign. Claudin 4 was the most significantly upregulated (68%) marker in patients with malignant effusions. In cytologically negative malignant effusions, claudin 4 was found increased in 8/18 fluids. Quantitative RT-PCR is a sensitive method for the detection of free cancer cells in serous effusions.