Dar es Salaam, July 8 -- TRADITIONAL hat-wearing has been a unique culture for Zanzibar for many decades.

The hat, popularly known as kofia ya kiua, is made locally by young women who take about one to five weeks to complete the weaving process of a single hat, depending on how busy the maker is.

But the kofia ya kiua business, which employs mainly women in villages as an additional income-generating activity, is being threatened by increasing machine-made hats from the Middle East, Indonesia, Malaysia and China.

Traditional hats, locally hand-made by women, are considered the best and durable costing 50,000/- to 100,000/-. However, they are threatened by imported cheap kofia sold between 5,000/- and 20,000/-. The kofia is a brimless c...