HIDDEN VIOLENCE: THE ABUSE OF WIDOWS
WRI in partnership with Widows for Peace and reconstruction
circulated a petition to participating
NGOs at the Commission on the Status of Women calling attention
to the “ terrible silence about violence to widows”.
The neglect of the international community to the issue
of widow abuse was deemed to be nothing short of scandalous
and the petition noted that in the Secretary-General’s
report on Thematic Issues for the meeting neglected to specify
widow-abuse, along with female genital mutilation, as an
example of harmful traditional practices.
The full text of the petition is as follows:
There is a terrible silence about violence to widows. Gender-based
abuse of widows is a taboo subject, unmentionable as if
it does not exist. Widows are presumed to be pure, chaste
women, mostly elderly, grieving for their husbands and supported
and respected by their joint and extended families.
Yet the reality is quite the opposite. Across a wide spectrum
of countries, cultures and religions, irrespective of age,
class, caste, educational or income level, the physical,
sexual, psychological abuse perpetrated on widows, including
threats of such acts is widespread, systematic and grave.
The low legal, economic, social and cultural status of the
widows exposes them to violence from all sections of their
communities with irrevocable negative consequences for their
children and for society at large.
The international community’s neglect of widow abuse
is nothing short of scandalous. There is no mention of gender-based
violence against widows in the list of vulnerable women
in paragraphs 116 and 126(d) of the Beijing Platform for
Action, now in the Outcome Document of 2000. The Report
of the Secretary-General on Thematic Issues for the 47th
meeting of the CSW repeats this neglect. It fails, in 111A
(para 15) to specify widow-abuse, along with FGM as an example
of harmful traditional practices.
It is imperative that here, at the 47th session of the
UN Commission on the Status of Women, the curtain of silence
is lifted on this violation of women’s human rights
and concrete actions are taken.
Violence to Widows
§ Widows of all ages are vulnerable to violence: child
widows, young widowed mothers, elderly women.
§ Given the huge increase in the number of widows due
to AIDS, armed conflict, the demographic tilt, the escalation
of child marriages and the great rise in domestic violence,
especially in conflict-afflicted countries, the vulnerability
of widows should become an "emerging issue" for
the CSW and of concern to the CEDAW committee.
§ In Africa and South Asia, disputes over lack of rights
to inheritance, land and property ownership under customary
law expose widows to physical harm and even death at the
hands of male relatives. Relatives abuse widows with impunity
since their activities are regarded as “family matters”
and police do not intervene.
§ Widows who attempt to seek outside help, legal protection
or redress, often encounter further violence. Threats of
violence deter widows from seeking such help.
§ Traditional Mourning and Burial Rites forced on widows
in many communities in Africa and some parts of Asia are
degrading and life-threatening and must be recognised as
crimes of violence.
§ Widows are vulnerable to rape through such traditional
practices as widow-inheritance, or Levirate.
§ Sati is the extreme manifestation of widow-abuse,
and still occurs from time to time in backward rural communities
in North India. However, portrayal of day-to-day lives of
many South Asian widows reveal a catalogue of systematic,
sustained and serious cruelty based on attitudes to their
marital status which demand attention.
§ Legislation to criminalise traditional practises
and ensure widows can inherit, own land and property is
often poorly implemented. Interpretations of customary,
traditional and religious law may take precedence over modern
law and ratified international treaties such as CEDAW and
CRC, causing widows to lose their homes, access to land
and food security.
§ The poverty of widows, due to discrimination, exposes
them to violence in the community through their vulnerability
to economic exploitation in prostitution, trafficking and
slavery (including sexual slavery in domestic service).
§ In the context of the AIDS pandemic, widows of men
who have died of AIDS are often subject to accusations of
murder, promiscuity and witchcraft. Physical and mental
abuse of AIDA widows is common in some countries, and widows
many be murdered, killed in “honour” killings
or driven to suicide.
§ In armed conflict and in post-conflict environments,
the widows of war, from whatever side, are often targeted
in deliberate sexual attacks.
§ In post-conflict environments, refugee and internally
displaced widows are the least likely to be able to return
and repair their homes or have access to land for food security.
§ In post-conflict militaristic and violent societies,
widows and their daughters, without male protectors, are
exposed to the high risk of sexual and domestic violence
from their relatives, strangers in their communities, returning
soldiers, foreign peace-keepers and those from the “other
side” who fear that the widows, survivors of genocide,
will testify against them (cf Rwanda widows at the IWCTR).
§ The poverty and extreme marginalization anddemonisation
of widows in many regions of the world exposes them to violence
from family members, the local communities, traffickers,
bandits and criminals, petty officials including the police.
Widows” lack of access to the justice system, at
the local level, and lack of protection from community leaders
and the police, permits this violence to continue with impunity.
IF YOU BELIEVE THAT THE CSW, UN AGENCIES, STATES
PARTIES, NGOs AND THE CEDAW COMMITTEE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING
VIOLENCE TO WIDOWS, PLEASE EMAIL:
Empowering Widows in development (WRI): [email protected]
Widows for Peace and Development (WPR): [email protected]
