CULTURAL RIGHTS IN TANZANIA

Do Tanzanian Artists enjoy cultural rights in their artistic works?

Even though the creative activities of artists could become a new way of integrating Tanzania into the global economy, stimulating employment within the creative sector, the lack of cultural rights has been a major setback to improving in this area. So the main question is;

Do Tanzanian Artists enjoy cultural rights in their artistic works?

Cultural rights are part of the corpus of human rights and concern many areas of life (not only artistic, literary, or traditional, but also political, social, economic, etc)

The right to education, information, freedom of opinion and expression, free association, and participation in decision-making, to cite only a few, are indispensable to the enjoyment of cultural rights.

Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)-1966

enshrining cultural rights as human rights reproduces these different elements of cultural rights. These cultural rights are subdivided into three distinct but interdependent rights:

1. The right to participate in cultural life (Article 15.1.a)

2. The right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications (Article 15.1.b)

3. The right (of everyone) to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of which she/he is the author (Article 15.1.c)

Thereafter, at the roundtable meeting with strategic stakeholders, artists raised their opinions and testimonies concerning the infringement of cultural rights. Artists are not benefiting from their works because there is a gap in schooling for the art business and no direct involvement and engagement in the process of drafting policies and enacting laws of the sector. But also harsh censorship of artistic works supported by day-to-day enactment of incriminating regulations, and poor legal framework for the protection of moral and material interests as well. In Tanzania enjoyment of cultural rights is subjected to government permits. As the article provided, the steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for the conservation, development, and diffusion of science and culture.

In this context, cultural rights express the wealth of humanity. Furthermore, due to cultural diversity states are obliged to respect and protect this wealth. To respect cultural diversity is to respect not only human dignity but also to contribute to the development of arts and literature. Regarding, the claim that Tanzania is a democratic country with free individuals who enjoy freedom, justice, fraternity, and human dignity, will be nonsense if the minority artists will continue to be hooked by frequently enacted regulations and amended legislations to under indispensable freedom of creativity.

As of now, Tanzania is under consideration of having a new constitution. We advocate that the Parliament should accommodate expressly artistic freedom of expression as one of the stipulated human rights. This is crucial in assuring the justice of cultural rights in Tanzania. This will help the government in elucidating its obligations under the ICESCR, which will arguably improve both implementation and compliance.

Furthermore, the law should be reviewed and reformed to improve the provision of justice on matters of moral and material interests, especially copyright infringement, rather than the practice of COSOTA to console with DPP. Due to the illustration, the enjoyment of cultural rights in Tanzania is still in question especially when it comes to practices of arts.