Tanzania: Capital City Considers Publishing Names Of Married Men To Protect Single Women

Dar es Salaam regional commissioner, Paul Makonda, says he and the provincial top administration are mulling over an idea of publishing the identities of all married men to a website run by a State agency in a bid to stop deceitful married men from sexually preying on unsuspecting single women.

Makonda says the proposal, if adopted, will save many young women in Dar es Salaam from “unnecessary heartbreaks”.

“I have received a lot of complaints from young women. Many women from Dar es Salaam region have been deceived many times, and they have had enough. Men have been promising to marry them, then later, they [men] ditch the ladies. This is something that is humiliating,” Mr Makonda said on Monday, August 12 at his office in the commercial capital.

“These cunning men have left many women nursing heartbreaks and emotional bruises. You’ll find a young man successfully wooing a woman, making her leave every other thing that she does, hoping that the man will marry her, not knowing that he is, indeed, conning her.

“If you look at the laws that we have in the country, there is a clause that protects women, who were promised marriages, only to be used and dumped. We want to use that clause to bring sanity n relationships.

“I cannot say I am a leader, when the people I look after are hurting.

“One of the ideas that we have is to have all the married people register their marital statuses with the region’s database agency. This will help young women promised marriages. It would be easy for them to access the database and find out whether the men who have promised to marry them are people’s husbands or not. In that database, all the marriages, including Christian, customary, Muslim, those filed at the registrar of marriages, will be registered.

“We want to reduce the cases of men conning women in the name of love and marriages.

“We are planning to meet the State agency in charge of the citizens’ database. Once that meeting is done, you, who lied to a woman that you will marry her, but ended up using and dumping her, be prepared, we are coming for you.”