Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director, UNIFEM: (The United Nations Development Fund for Women) supporting our conference in 2001
....In the context of our efforts to advance the full realisation of women's human rights and the elimination of all forms of violence against women, the special concerns of widows are of paramount concern to UNIFEM.
Our Partner - Astha
ASTHA is a registered Society and NGO, based in South Rajasthan , the tribal belt of the state.
They have been working on the issue of widows since 1998. In 1999 ASTHA organized a state-wide widows’ convention of 450 widows from 22 Districts in the state, and at the end of the convention, a state-level coordinating committee of 3 widows per District was formed. In January 2000, this coordinating committee met, and formed Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan – the Association of Strong Women Alone (ENSS)
Working process
It is intended that the Association will spread throughout the whole state which has 32 Districts in all, each District being divided into a number of Blocks. At the moment, the Association has Block Committees in 55 Blocks in 21 Districts and has more than 9,000 members. Widows and separated women who want to become members pay a membership fee of Rs. 11/- per year.
Block Level Committee members are in charge of recruiting new members. Block Level Committee members take up cases brought to them by members. These usually deal with problems with pension forms and procedures, cases of mental and physical atrocities, problems related to caste and community customs, problems of claiming rights over land and property, problems related to superstition, etc. At monthly meetings of the Block Committee members, the cases are discussed and members try to decide on an effective strategy for deal with them.
In relation to land cases, when a widow has a problem in getting access to and control over land that is legally hers, or hers and her children’s, she approaches the Block Committee for help.
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case studies from Astha