Women In Distress

According to sample registration system, more than 8% female population is widow in India.

- Jaweria Afreen Hussaini

Absent in statistics, unnoticed by researchers, neglected by national and local authorities and mostly overlooked by civil society organisations – the situation of widows is, in effect, invisible.

Yet abuse of widows and their children constitutes one of the most serious violations of human rights and obstacles to development today. Millions of the world’s widows endure extreme poverty, ostracism, violence, homelessness, ill health and discrimination in law and custom.

Millions of widows around the world are left destitute after being robbed of their inheritance, while others are enslaved by their in-laws, accused of witchcraft or forced to undergo abusive sexual rituals, research shows.

The crushing poverty and persecution faced by widows worldwide is outlined in a major report on widowhood which was presented to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

“Widows have been suffering in silence for centuries, and yet nobody – no government, not even the UN – has ever attended to this problem,” said Lord Raj Loomba, a campaigner on widowhood, who discussed the issue with Ban in New York.

There are more than 258 million widows worldwide with one in seven living on less than $1 a day, according to the World Widows Report produced by the Loomba Foundation which works to empower widows.

Newly-widowed women in many developing countries are often plunged into destitution after being disinherited, stripped of property and evicted by their in-laws, sometimes losing their children.

Those who remain reliant on their in-laws are often treated like slaves, abused physically, psychologically and sexually. The deprivation faced by widows is even more devastating because of the impact on their children who may be pulled out of school and forced into child labour or early marriage.