The marriage laws need to be revised to protect girl children. More needs to be done to protect young offenders from imprisonment with adult prisoners, and to build capacity for effective probation services for juvenile offenders. Although infant and child mortality has shown considerable improvement in the last five years, there is still a long way before child’s right to survival and development can be guaranteed. 250,000 children die each year from preventable illnesses with 80 per cent of deaths occurring at home. The leading causes of under-five mortality are, in decreasing order of importance, malaria, anaemia, pneumonia, prenatal conditions, diarrhea and HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition is an underlying cause of most deaths. More needs to be done to promote birth registration, currently reaching only 19 per cent of children. Most health services are not user friendly to young people especially in the area of reproductive health. Although primary education enrolment has surged to around 95 per cent since the abolition of school fees, retention and attendance figures are lower. In addition, Tanzania still has one of the lowest secondary school rates in Africa (around 10 per cent). Social security schemes coverage is still limited to those in formal employment, though the Government is looking into adopting a National Social Protection framework with a wider coverage. Tanzanian law ensures the protection of children refugees, and provides for reunion with their family and their right to primary education, health and other social services. With regards to children in armed conflict Tanzania does not provide for conscription into the armed forces and discourages such recruitment in its territory. vi