Submission to the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of United Republic of Tanzania – October-November 2026

By | May 5, 2026

UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW – FOURTH CYCLE
Submission to the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council’s Universal

Periodic Review Working Group
October-November 2026, Geneva, Switzerland

UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) is a nongovernmental organization that was founded in 1997 and has held Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council since 2014. We are headquartered in New York and Washington, D.C., and are a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization that is dedicated to reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person.

INTRODUCTION

  1. This report focuses on Tanzania’s fulfillment of Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) stating that every person has a right to “life, liberty and security of person” through its pro-life legislation, as well as its defense of the natural family unit within the context of Article 16 of UDHR which maintains that “the family is the fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”[1]

PROTECTING MATERNAL HEALTH

  1. At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), nations pledged “to enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant.”[2] The unique and essential role of women as mothers was recognized in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women.[3] Both of these landmark conferences, as well as the subsequent Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals, include commitments to reduce maternal and child mortality. While significant progress has been made around the world, critical gaps remain, especially in the poorest, most remote, and resource-deprived areas.
  2. Tanzania is a regional example in reducing maternal deaths. While in 2016, Tanzania was experiencing 556 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, according to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), Tanzania “has recorded a sharp decline in maternal deaths, from 102 in 2022 to 76 in 2023 per 100,000 live births in health facilities.”[4]
  3. According to the Penal Code of Tanzania, abortion is outlawed unless to save the life of the mother.[5] Tanzania’s significant improvements in maternal health were realized without liberalizing its abortion laws. According to a 2025 report, such success is attributable to “increased political commitment, an increased number of Emergency Obstetric and Newborn care (EmONC) facilities, a growing health workforce, a strengthened obstetric referral network, capacity building, mentorship, and the conduct of Maternal and Perinatal Death Reviews and Surveillance at all levels.”[6] Tanzania is on track to achieve its goal of 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030 by continuing to strengthen health systems and use its laws to protect the lives of the unborn.

PROTECTING HUMAN LIFE

  1. Tanzania’s social and cultural opposition to abortion is in line with the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), flagging the importance of mitigating the harmful effects of abortion on women while asserting that “any measures or changes related to abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national or local level according to the national legislative process.”[7]
  2. In 2024, Tanzania authorized the registration and distribution of mifepristone, one of the drugs used for medication abortions, for emergency contraception, uterine fibroids, as well as abortion, where it is legal. This was claimed as a victory by abortion advocacy groups including MSI Reproductive Choices.[8] While Tanzania’s laws prohibit most abortions, the registration and distribution of abortion-inducing drugs in countries with pro-life laws have been used to increase access to illegal abortions and circumvent the law.[9]
  3. Tanzania has received a recommendation to decriminalize abortion in the second UPR cycle. Norway asked Tanzania to “implement the provisions in the African Union’s Maputo Protocol into its national legislation, including those on women’s rights to medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest and where the life of the mother or the foetus is in danger.”[10] This was marked as “noted” by Tanzania.

SUPPORT FOR THE FAMILY

  1. Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights maintains that “the family is the fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”[11]
  2. In Tanzania, there is no recognition of same-sex marriage. This position of Tanzania reflects the fact that same-sex marriage is not a subject on which global consensus exists; nor is it included as a right in any binding international legal instrument to which Tanzania is a party. As summarized in the Family Articles, a project of the coalition Civil Society for the Family, the right to create a family is based on the union of a man and a woman, and “Relations between individuals of the same sex and other social and legal arrangements that are neither equivalent nor analogous to the family are not entitled to the protections singularly reserved for the family in international law and policy.”[12]
  3. All human beings possess the same fundamental human rights by their inherent dignity and worth, including the right to equal protection of the law without any discrimination.[13] Individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc., are protected from violence and discrimination to the same extent as any individual under the equal protection principle in human rights law. However, they are not entitled to special protections based on their sexual preferences and subjective gender identity as such.

NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

  1. The legal status of abortion and the protection of the unborn, it is a matter of longstanding consensus that “each nation has the sovereign right to implement programs and activities consistent with their laws and policies.” However, opposition to this sovereign right of countries has become increasingly commonplace in those parts of the United Nations system governed more by expert opinion or bureaucratic oversight than by the standard of negotiated consensus. There is no global mandate to pressure countries to liberalize their abortion laws or expand the categories for non-discrimination as a matter of international human rights law concerning, for example, sexual orientation or gender identity, and to the extent that mandate-holders engage in such behavior, they do so ultra vires.
  2. Nevertheless, the frequency of such pressure has only increased toward countries whose laws restrict abortion to protect the unborn, or which maintain a traditional view of marriage and the family, in line with the human rights obligations expressed in the binding treaties they have ratified. Such nonbinding opinions have been elevated in many parts of the UN, although they have never been accepted nor adopted by consensus in the General Assembly.
  3. Unlike other UN human rights mechanisms, the UPR provides a space for sovereign nations to speak to each other and provide encouragement to fulfill their human rights obligations. To the extent that this venue has been used to exert further pressure on countries to liberalize their abortion laws or redefine the family as a matter of national law and policy, global consensus on these matters must be upheld and promoted in the UPR as well.

THE GENEVA CONSENSUS DECLARATION

  1. In 2020, the ministers and high representatives of 34 countries met to launch the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), in which they committed to promoting four objectives: improve women’s health, protect human life, strengthen the family as the basic unit of society, and defend the sovereignty of nations concerning their laws and policies to protect life.[14]
  2. The language of the GCD is drawn exclusively from documents agreed by consensus, including core UN human rights treaties, the founding documents of the UN such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and major meeting outcomes such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population Development. The GCD also reaffirms the importance of women’s equal rights and their contributions to society, both in terms of education, employment, and civic engagement and through the family.
  3. We encourage Tanzania to join the GCD. As a signatory to the Geneva Consensus Declaration, Tanzania would express its position that abortion is not an international human right. It is therefore consistent with this position that Tanzania and other members of the Geneva Consensus Declaration maintain legislation that protects unborn life and reject any pressure to legalize abortion as such recommendations are not only inconsistent with national laws and priorities but also outside the scope of internationally agreed human rights standards and obligations. As a GCD signatory, Tanzania would also express that the family is “the natural and fundamental group unit of society” as understood to be formed between a man and a woman.

CONCLUDING RECOMMENDATIONS

  1. Tanzania should continue to improve maternal and child health outcomes, including by ensuring adequate, affordable maternal health care. Following Tanzania’s commitments to protect life in the womb, this does not require the inclusion of abortion in essential health services.
  2. We encourage the relevant authorities in Tanzania to reconsider the authorization and distribution of mifepristone, even for purposes other than abortion, given the high likelihood that this will facilitate increased illegal abortion and disregard for the law.
  3. We encourage Tanzania to continue protecting the natural family and marriage, formed by a husband and a wife, as the fundamental unit of society.
  4. In line with its commitment to defend the natural family and the right to life of all, including babies in the womb, we encourage Tanzania to join a coalition of like-minded countries defending these principles in the multilateral fora by signing the Geneva Consensus Declaration.

[1] United Nations General Assembly. (1948). “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Paris.

[2] United Nations International Conference on Population and Development. (1994). “Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population Development,” Cairo.

[3] United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. (1995). “Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action” (Annex II, Paragraph 29). Beijing.

[4] World Health Organization: African Region. Reducing maternal mortality in Tanzania’s Kigoma region.  July 10, 2024. Available at https://www.afro.who.int/photo-story/reducing-maternal-mortality-tanzanias-kigoma-region

[5] The United Republic of Tanzania, Office of the Attorney General.  The Penal Code.  Available at https://oagmis.oag.go.tz/portal/revised-acts/revised/121

[6] Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.  Tanzania’s Success to Reduce Maternal Mortality Ushers in a Model for Africa.  February 11, 2025. Available at https://africacdc.org/news-item/tanzanias-success-to-reduce-maternal-mortality-ushers-in-a-model-for-africa/

[7] United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, ibid.

[8] MSI Reproductive Choices.  Advocacy win: Mifepristone registered in Tanzania.  April 19. 2024.  Available at https://www.msichoices.org/latest/advocacy-win-mifepristone-registered-in-tanzania/

[9] Winikoff B, Sheldon W. Use of medicines changing the face of abortion. Int Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 2012 Sep;38(3):164-6. doi: 10.1363/3816412. PMID: 23018138. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23018138/

[10] United Nations General Assembly.  Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: United Republic of Tanzania. July 14, 2016. Available at https://undocs.org/A/HRC/33/12

[11] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ibid.

[12] Civil Society for the Family. The Family Articles. Available at https://civilsocietyforthefamily.org/

[13] United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948. Available at https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

[14] Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family, 2020. Available at https://undocs.org/en/A/75/626

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