Tanzania has a number of institutions that can, and do, play a role in responding to cases of child exploitation and abuse, potentially including OCSEA. These range from the Women and Children Protection Committees at the village/community level to the 14 multi-agency One Stop Centres, which make it possible to provide medical, psychosocial and criminal justice support in a single child-friendly setting.

Children in Tanzania are facing the harms and realities of online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). The majority (67%) of children in Tanzania aged 12–17 years old are internet users. Available literature on Sexual exploitation of children indicates that 4% of internet users aged 12–17 in Tanzania were victims of grave instances of online sexual exploitation and abuse.

Promising practices are taking place in Tanzania to tackle OCSEA, but greater awareness raising, and system strengthening is required. The government, public institutions and society can all do more to disrupt the harm OCSEA is causing and threatens to cause, to children in Tanzania.

FGM is illegal in Tanzania, but some communities in Mara region still see FGM as an important cultural practice. This is a leading root cause of high school dropout rates and child marriage in the region. According to the Tanzania National Bureau of statistics (2012), it is estimated that about 75% of girls aged 9-16 years undergo FGM every year around Tarime District-Tanzania.

In most communities where this happens, FGM is conducted as a rite of passage and it is believed that it prevents womens´ sexual desires and therefore controls sexual behaviors and infidelity in marriage. The practice subjects children to early marriage as it is believed that the “cut”  girl is ready for marriage and men prefer young-cut girls for marriage thus making economic gains to families due to the high dowry paid to the young circumcised girls.

The entrenched social and structural discrimination against girls and boys with disabilities in Tanzania means that many live with relatives in isolation and are invisible from society, often kept indoors and out of sight; they have less interaction with peers or adults in whom they could confide; and stigma surrounding disability can result in their needs and rights being dismissed by communities, authorities and families. Boys and girls with disabilities, children with albinism and with autism are especially vulnerable to violence and exploitation in Tanzania. This goes together with the acute lack of access to education, child protection and medical, psychosocial, legal and other services, including reporting mechanisms, that rarely accommodate their individual needs.

Girls with disabilities suffer a double disadvantage as they are also trafficked for child labour (begging on the streets) and child marriage as a result of FGM, which jeopardise girls´ survival, developmental, protection and participation rights.

The Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics report (2016) estimates that the Agricultural industry accounted for at least 28.8% of child labour cases as of 2016. Recent statistics by the US Bureau of International Labour Affairs indicate that the Agricultural sector accounts for 94% of working children in Tanzania, most of whom are between the ages of 5 and 14.

The report further states that children working in the sector are drawn from school dropouts often due to teenage pregnancies, child marriage, abandoned children who end up taking the role of heads of households, and children from poor households, often as a result of human trafficking, and those accompanying their parents to work.