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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#202020">Widows Lose Much More Than a Spouse: In Many Countries,They Lose Their Dignity!
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#202020">Call for Global Action for Widows<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><i><span style="font-size:10.5pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">By Eleanor Nwadinobi and Meera Khanna on June 17, 2019
</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020"> <br>
<img width="591" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://www.passblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Screen-Shot-2019-06-17-at-11.31.35-AM.jpg"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">The property rights of Catherine, a widow, have been threatened with violence in Magu, Tanzania. For widows across the
globe, their losses can be uncountable, including their human rights. BEN SMALL/HELPAGE INTERNATIONAL</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">For many women around the world, the death of a spouse is magnified by many losses — of their social status, marital home, land, property, social security, dignity and,
sometimes, their children. But men, on the other hand, lose none of their human rights while usually gaining support in starting a new chapter in his life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">Unfortunately, discriminatory and punitive behavior toward widows ostracizes them, forces many of them and their children into poverty and represents a form of gender-based
violence that is unjust and unacceptable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#C00000">The United Nations observes June 23 as International Widows’ Day
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">to draw global attention to the voices and experiences of an estimated 258 million widows worldwide, of whom one in 10 lives in extreme poverty, according to a
2018 report by UN Women. Many widows face economic, social, physical and psychological violence by their marital families and communities. This maltreatment is worsened by lack of awareness, resources and access to justice.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">We have both witnessed the harmful practices widows face as young professionals working in Nigeria and India, experiences that have shaped our work and led to our understanding
of this global human-rights violation. Many widows face eviction from their homes and denial of their inheritance rights to land and other property for which they have worked and on which they depend for their livelihood.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">Customary laws and cultural norms tacitly support such economic violence against widows despite statutory law protections. Impoverished widows are often forced into “levirate”
marriages — as if they were property to be inherited by a male in-law — and some are forced to fight in court for custody of their children, if they have the knowledge and resources to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">Many widows also endure harmful traditional practices that isolate and shame them. For example, in some communities in Nigeria, older widows are expected to forcefully
shave the heads of younger widows. New widows may be confined for weeks and forbidden to bathe, while forced by their in-laws to cry in public. And we’ve seen firsthand how some communities in India enforce stigmatizing codes that govern a widow’s dress and
diet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">Often, behavior codes in cultures around the world restrict a widow’s mobility, barring her from access to job training to upgrading her earning abilities to support herself
and her family. Children of widows, especially girls, suffer too, since they are often withdrawn from school and vulnerable to abuse. This contributes to an intergenerational cycle of poverty and sexual violence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">Remember, too, that despite the stereotype, not all widows are old. Violent conflicts in countries where forced marriages to children create many child widows. In some
cases, child widows are widowed more than once before they reach the age of consent. Widows of all ages may lose their spouses due to war, riots, natural disasters, diseases or old age, while some grieve husbands who have simply “disappeared.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">The UN has said that often, widows are treated as “<a href="https://passblue.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5d5693a8f1af2d4b6cb3160e8&id=3108beb727&e=cc2f9fa8a0"><span style="color:#2B904E">invisible
women</span></a>,” discrimination that can be fatal. We were moved by the account of a woman in Nepal — Santu Kamari Maharjan, 55 — who <a href="https://passblue.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5d5693a8f1af2d4b6cb3160e8&id=0bf1c2f4f0&e=cc2f9fa8a0"><span style="color:#2B904E">told
Womankind Worldwide</span></a> how she has faced decades of discrimination while struggling to support her family since she was widowed at age 32. Maharjan said that after an earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, she lost her house and belongings, yet was blocked
from seeking food aid and other vital resources.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">She said: “Everything I owned was gone in seconds. I didn’t have any income after the earthquake. All of the villages collected food and shared it around. The relief efforts
giving out materials prioritized the people who could go out and speak, mainly men. Single women couldn’t go, we weren’t allowed to ask for what we needed. If a woman is single, she will be told to keep quiet because she doesn’t have a husband.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">International Widows’ Day is a call for global action to support policies, programs and resources to end all kinds of violence against widows and to restore their right
to a life of human dignity, including economic independence. We must uphold widows’ right of inheritance and their right to start new lives through job training, substantial loans to launch businesses, access to health care and scholarships to benefit their
children’s education.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">As steering committee members of <a href="https://passblue.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5d5693a8f1af2d4b6cb3160e8&id=c933a02c42&e=cc2f9fa8a0"><span style="color:#2B904E">Every
Woman Treaty</span></a> — a campaign for global treaty — we’re part of a coalition of women’s rights advocates in 128 countries, calling for a global treaty to end violence against women and girls. Such a treaty would create a binding standard on ending the
harmful practices imposed on widows, so women like Santu can get the resources they need to sustain their families and to rebuild their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:150%">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#202020">Widows lose much more than a spouse; they need much more than words of sympathy. Widows need global action.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?e=cc2f9fa8a0&u=5d5693a8f1af2d4b6cb3160e8&id=4095b0b882">https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?e=cc2f9fa8a0&u=5d5693a8f1af2d4b6cb3160e8&id=4095b0b882</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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