This archive report was first published on 13 August 2019.
On August 12, 2019, Paul Makonda, the Regional Commissioner of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, sparked controversy with a proposal to register married men in a database to prevent them from cheating on their partners.
Makonda's plan aims to address the issue of men who promise to marry women but ultimately leave them heartbroken.
According to Makonda, the database would be used to verify the marital status of men who promise to marry women, thereby preventing them from taking advantage of unsuspecting women.
"One of the ideas we have is that when a man marries, he should register on a database so that when a woman is given a promise to marry, she can go to the database and check whether the man is married or not," Makonda said in a YouTube address.
The proposal has been met with mixed reactions, with some praising Makonda's efforts to protect women's rights while others have expressed concerns about the feasibility and potential consequences of such a plan.
Makonda's plan is part of a broader effort to address the issue of men who promise to marry women but ultimately leave them heartbroken.
As part of this effort, Makonda has also proposed that the matter be discussed with neighboring countries who are members of the Southern African Development Committee (SADC) during their annual meeting in Tanzania.
"We want to use this SADC meeting to see how other member countries are dealing with this issue of men promising marriage to women but then leaving them," Makonda said.
It is worth noting that Tanzania's law, which is based on common law provisions, safeguards the rights of women from being induced by a promise to marry.
However, in Kenya, promise to marry is not binding as per provisions of the Marriage Act (2014).
Prior to this, promise to marry was considered a breachable marriage offence, under the common law inherited from UK laws.
As such, famous cases concerning the issue such as Muinde v Muinde and Peter Kariuki V Ngaruchi fell short.
Merits of awarding a case that regards the breach of a promise to marry have proved difficult, with the offence requiring cogent proof of the promise and the fact of the complexity of enforcing the promise, seeing as marriage is voluntary as per the law.
