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One of our Partners, WiDO (Widows Development Organisation), Nigeria

If you are interested in knowing the outcome of these cases, please contact us at enquiries@widowrsrights.org.

WOP (Woman Of Purpose), an African Partner, Uganda

RECENT   ARTICLES   AND   EVENTS

The Indian Express

Monday, October 17, 2005

Bina Agarwal, Author of A field of her own

The livelihood and empowerment prospects of millions of women who depend on agriculture for survival are affected by their legal rights in land. For many these prospects have been enhanced by the recent Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005(HSAA) which deleted the gender discriminatory clause on agricultural land. But this benefits only Hindu women, leaving intact the disabilities facing non-Hindu women, especially Muslim and tribal women — something that should concern all of us who work for gender justice.

Muslim women in India fall under The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937. With this, the Shariat superceded “custom or usage to the contrary” for all property, except agricultural land, as the basis of personal law for Muslims in undivided India, except J&K.  Earlier, Muslims (like most Hindus before the 1956 Hindu Succession Act) were governed by a mosaic of local customs, laws and practices, some in sync with the Shariat, most at variance with it. The ’37 Act, by abrogating custom, enhanced most Muslim women’s rights, since typically customs (except among matrilineal Muslims, as in Kerala), were highly discriminatory: some entirely excluded daughters, others placed them (and widows) very low in the succession order. In contrast, under the Shariat, a daughter and widow cannot be excluded by any other heir and are protected by the overall testamentary restrictions, even though their shares are always lower than men’s. However, the ’37 Act, excluded a critical form of property: agricultural land. Section (2) provides that:

“Notwithstanding any custom or usage to the contrary, in all questions (save questions relating to agricultural land) regarding intestate succession, special property of females, including personal property inherited or obtained under contract or gift, or any other provision of Personal Law, marriage, dissolution of marriage, including Talaq, Ila, Zihar, Lian, Khula and Mubaraat, maintenance, dower, guardianship, gifts, trusts and trust properties, and wakfs (other than charities and charitable institutions, and charitable and religious endowments) the rule of decision in cases where the parties are Muslims shall be the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat).”

Later the southern states extended the ’37 Act to include agricultural land by deleting the phrase “save questions relating to agricultural land”. TN, Karnataka and AP did so in ’49. Kerala followed in ’63. Elsewhere, however, succession to agricultural land continues to depend variously on customs, tenurial laws, etc, with differing implications across the unamended states.

In some, e.g., Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Bengal, there was no strong presumption in favour of custom even before the ’37 Act. Here, even without amendment, the Shariat could be presumed to cover agricultural land.

Continued …

The same holds for the parts of AP and Karnataka which were earlier in the former Hyderabad state, and where custom at variance with Mohammedan law was not admitted even before 1937. But in many other states, e.g., Delhi, Haryana, HP, Punjab, UP and J&K, highly discriminatory tenurial laws and customs, at considerable variance with the Shariat, continue. These virtually exclude women from rights in agricultural land. For instance, in UP, with one-sixth of India’s population, non-Hindu women’s land rights are still subject to the UP Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act ’50. Section 171 of the Act, which defines succession to a man’s land, gives primacy to the male lineal descendants in the male line of descent. Only in their absence can a widow qualify. Daughters come lower. Tenurial laws in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, HP and J&K give similar primacy to male heirs. This is contrary to the rights promised to Muslim women by the Shariat.

Notably, on agricultural land, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim women are better off. In Pakistan the ’37 Shariat Act was superceded by later laws. Finally, the West Pakistan Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1962 included agricultural land and extended the Shariat to all of West Pakistan, except ‘Tribal Areas’ in the NWFP. The Act entitled Muslim women to inherit all property, including agricultural, with shares as prescribed by the Shariat. Pakistani women’s groups played a key role in this reform.

Muslims of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), however, continued to come under the ’37 Shariat Act. But here women were not disadvantaged since even before this Act customs contrary to Islamic law were not enforced in (undivided) Bengal: here the Shariat (by presumption) applies also to agricultural land, as outlined in Mulla’s Principles of Mohammedan Law 1990, and confirmed by my discussions with Bangladeshi lawyers.

Surely in India too it is time to remove this anomaly. Deleting the phrase “save questions relating to agricultural land” in Section 2 of the Shariat Act, would bring all property, including agricultural, in line with the Shariat. Although, women would be entitled to smaller shares than men, still this amendment would go a long way in enhancing Muslim women’s rights in this critical livelihood source. Vast numbers of Muslim women depend on agriculture for subsistence, many as de-facto household heads, as more men move to non-farm jobs. Indeed one of the earliest grassroots demands by Indian women for land rights came from poor Muslim women in West Bengal who, in ’79, told their panchayat: “Please go and ask the government why when it distributes land, we don’t we get a title? Are we not peasants?” These women and millions like them deserve an answer. But government land distribution is limited, and inheritance remains the main source for women’s land access.

On other aspects of inequality, the only Muslim countries with full gender equality in inheritance laws are Turkey and Somalia. In some others, like Bangladesh, women have debated whether the constitution should define personal law. My aim here is, however, more modest and the reform suggested vis-à-vis agricultural land is doable within the purview of the Shariat. The precedent for such amendment already exists in southern states.

Tribal women are the second major category facing substantial disabilities in inheritance. Given the non-codification of their laws, tribal communities are governed by customs which (except under matriliny) discriminate against women. And even the limited customary land rights many tribal women enjoyed historically have been eroding. Attempts at gender-unequal codification in some north-eastern states have been opposed by women’s groups there. It is critical that any codification is along gender-equal lines.

There is a window of opportunity today for reform-minded political leaders, activists and intellectuals to work together, to correct historically embedded gender disabilities. Let this chance not be missed.

The writer is professor of economics, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi

Women’s Inheritance Rights in Nigeria

Transformative Practices

Vanessa Emery JD/MSW, former student of the University of Toronto

Nigeria, with its complex tripartite legal system, faces a particularly challenging legal situation in the face of the Aids pandemic in maintaining a harmonious and equitable balance amongst its over 250 different diverse peoples.   With an HIV prevalence rate of 5.4% amongst the adult population, and approximately 3,600,000 adults and children currently HIV+[1] the ability of the legal framework to provide support to those affected needs to be critically assessed.

Widows rights are a good entry point into a critical re-examination of Nigeria’s legal framework. Widows, as a set of individuals who are particularly vulnerable in the face of HIV, are beginning to come to public attention. As many AIDS widows have limited rights to inheritance, their ability to subsist in a land-based economy is placed in jeopardy. At the same time, widows play a pivotal role in caring for AIDS orphans and sick relatives.  Research into the complex topic of widow’s inheritance rights is therefore a necessary step in developing a holistic approach to combating the pandemic.

The paper has five sections. In the first section a normative framework is developed which recognizes that solutions must come from within a cultural framework that stems from the people themselves.  Working with community leaders to reinterpret customary law for example has greater legitimacy than attempts to impose reform from above.[2]   The importance of the cultural transformation approach is stressed. While culture may be seen as a barrier to reform, it can more fruitfully be seen as a dynamic site of tension and resistance that can provide for differing interpretations and potentialities to expand opportunities for women. While both customary laws and the common law have developed to protect particular world views, they must evolve in order to remain relevant to the needs of the people.

The second section focuses on the interaction between common law, customary law and sharia law as the living law of the nation. It also explains how land and marriage impact upon the bundle of rights that individuals possess regarding inheritance. The third section surveys inheritance laws for both testate and intestate succession in all three systems, and the fourth section provides a brief survey of the key social factors that impact upon widows’ ability to access, enforce, and advocate for inheritance rights.

The final section explores both top-down attempts at reform; through legislative reform, adoption of international conventions and judicial intervention, and grass roots options, focusing on cultural transformation rooted in the work of women in developing normative community frameworks, local judicial processes, and revitalizing customary values.   The author argues that there is no simple prescription for how to make cultural transformation work. Any successful approach must be multi-faceted in order to engage with different audiences and loci of power, and also negotiate difficult value judgements about the relationship between women, human rights, and culture.  

This is a shortened version. Vanessa Emery’s report is 76 pages long.  If you would like a copy please send your request to vanessa.emery@utoronto.ca

Role of Conflict Widows in Healing a Hurting World

Declaration

India Women's United Nations Report Network (WUNRN) Workshop Organised by The Guild of Service and Supported by UNIFEM

Preamble

This assembly of organisations and individuals involved in the process of prevention of conflict, reconstruction, peace reconciliation and empowering widows and other victim groups reiterates that:

While entire communities suffer the consequences of armed conflict and terrorism, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in society as well as their sex".

Women are on the one hand, the main civilian victims of conflicts, they are, on the other hand, often powerless to prevent them, excluded from the negotiating tables when it comes to their resolution and marginalised in
the post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation efforts. The general exclusion of women from decision-making positions prior to, during and following violent conflict reinforces their victimization.

Women are more than just victims, they are fighters. Widows are survivors. Mothers are peace builders.

A vast majority of women affected by conflict are widows as a direct or indirect consequence of the violence. To the process of peace building they bring sensitivity tempered by their personal loss, a sense of immediacy
since their families' futures are at stake and surviving skills against all odds. These qualities once tapped while accelerating the ownership of the process of reconstruction will help them individually to overcome their
personal traumas.

The peace-building process comprises several stages including conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post-conflict peace-building and reconstruction. Sustainable peace requires the full participation of women
particularly those affected by conflicts at each of the stages of the peace process.

The assembly called on governments to provide a range of diverse support for women and widows. To see the full declaration please go to our website www.widowsrights.org.

SUCCESS STORIES ON

NEGATIVE TRADITIONAL AND CULTURAL PRACTICES

By Madam Betty Ayagiba

National Director, Widows and Orphans Ministry, Ghana

The Widows and Orphans Ministry (WOM) carried out research on inheritance in four communities near Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region of Ghana and uncovered the following human rights issues among widows and reasons for their poverty:

·         Widows must bear the cost of the husband’s funeral and some widows even come to the WOM office to borrow money to perform their husband’s funeral rites.

·         The ritualist takes the clothes the widow wears during the funeral rites

·         Widows have to feed the ritualist with nutritious diet and other items like cooling drinks, alcohol, and tobacco (depending on what she/he takes) during the course of the funeral

·         Widows must supply the ritualist with all kinds of foodstuffs to take home after the funeral

·         The widow is stripped naked during the funeral

·         The widow is bathed naked before the crowd of mourners

·         The widow is forced to choose somebody in the husband’s family to marry and to continue bearing children to the dead husband’s name

·         A relative of the deceased inherits his property including the widow herself

Recommendations from the research were that WOM should work with Chiefs, opinion formers and group leaders to bring about change in attitudes.  So WOM enlisted the support of the Commission of Human Rights and Justice (CHRAJ) and Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) to run a series of workshops to educate the community on property laws, to adopt positive cultural practices and to eliminate or change negative cultural practices.   Facilitators used various Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools to ensure the success of the workshops

The workshops brought together more than one thousand participants from four communities and included Chiefs, elders, opinion formers and group leaders, and widows.

At each workshop for the chiefs, community men and women, the Director of WOM gave participants the findings of the research on the causes of widows’ poverty, after which widows shared with the community their experiences when their husbands died.

At one location a widow spoke of how she was driven out of the house she and her husband had toiled and built, and slept under a tree for three months. Another widow told of how her dead husband had left bullocks yet his relatives are using these bullocks to farm whilst she and her child weed with their hands.  Another woman could not control her tears as she told the story of how she and her children were maltreated; she said her children refused to eat food for four days.

A young widow confessed how a young man was seriously looking at her when they stripped her naked. She asked the man why he was looking at her and he replied that he felt bad for her.  Another widow said she refused to strip naked at the first of her husband’s funeral rites, but then

everybody in the village were against her saying that she had committed adultery and killed her husband which was the reason why she refused to strip naked.  So during the final funeral rites she had to strip herself naked.    One widow told of her pain when her children saw her nakedness at her husband’s funeral.

One ritualist said that they could only stop these practice if they are supported to rear goats or guinea fowls instead of performing funeral rites for employment.

Continued …

The second part of the workshop on educating chiefs, community men and women on property law was handled by WAJU and CHARJ. The facilitators were taken to the four villages and the community was educated on laws concerning inheritance of property. Participants were also told there are laws protecting women and children and, therefore, a person who dehumanizes another person’s dignity could be reported for punishment.

In our view this style of workshop is the best to combat or reduce negative cultural practices. The community was exposed to the plight of the widows and some of the practices such as drinking of concoctions made from contaminated leaves worn by a widow during a previous funeral.

When we were asked to send our contribution to the U.N Secretary General’s paper on violence against women, we mentioned that this is an effective method to reduce violence against widows.

TWO SuccessFUL OUTCOMES

·         A workshop was held in Kongo.  After the workshop the Kongo Chief and all the elders agreed that from the day onward they would not strip widows naked during funerals and would end the drinking of any concoctions. They also agreed that after the death of the husband, the widow and her children should use the husband property and when a widow’s daughter gets married, a portion of the bridewealth or the cows should be given to the mother.  One of the elders also spoke of how only girls are trained in cooking and doing all household jobs leaving the boys behind.  All agreed that boys should also be trained in cooking in the home.

Kongo was exceptional because they took immediate action to stop some of these negative funeral practices. The other three villages asked for time to think about possible changes but at the same time there was no doubt of how badly they felt to the exposure.

·         BA, about 30 years old, was her husband’s second wife, and they had three children.  His first wife had five children. Three years ago he died after a short illness.

During his lifetime BA’s husband was able to put up six rooms for himself and his two wives. After his death, life was so hard for BA that she had to move to town to look for a job to take care of her children. Through the WOM she was trained in baking bread.

One day she decided to visit her in-laws and to clean her rooms; while she was sweeping, her husband’s brother came in and asked why she had come to the house. He beat her so severely that she had to go to hospital.  She reported this to WOM, and he was arrested and imprisoned. After two months he was given the option of paying a five hundred thousand cedis fine or spending a further six months in prison.

This case has scared a lot of in-laws from beating widows.

Dr. Mohini Giri of The Guild Service, Delhi

at the University of New England

            October 27, 2005

             By Laura Slap-Shelton, Psy.D.

Dr. Mohini V. Giri addressed a standing room only crowd of approximately 200 at the University of New England (UNE) in Biddeford, Maine on October 27, 2005.  Her appearance was co-hosted by GriefandRenewal.Com and UNE’s Office of Multicultural Studies and Women’s Studies Departments. As people were coming into the lecture, excerpts from White Rainbow, the new film about widows in Vrindavan, were playing. Dr. Giri opened her talk noting that what happens to women in India is relevant to people in America, particularly as technology brings us all closer together. Throughout the talk she emphasized the global importance of the problems faced by the widows and other marginalized women. Using a power point presentation she reviewed the status of widows in India. Her first person portrayal of what happens to a woman when she is widowed brought home to the audience, mostly female, the reality of the Indian woman’s plight when her husband dies. Dr. Giri described the transformation of a vibrant woman to a non-person. “Imagine in front of a group of my relatives as large as this one”, she said, “my bangles are smashed, my hair is shaved, my bindi removed.” She went on to state that widows are allowed only one meal a day and are not allowed to eat food with spices. They are forced to wear white saris. Saddest of all is that they are often removed from their children and families, and abandoned.  She described how the Guild of Service has been helping to connect the widows to their now grown children in recent years. Showing pictures of widows in different Guild of Service homes, she described three types of widows: religious widows, war widows, and riot widows. The audience responded to her talk with questions about the legal protections for widows vs. society’s practices, the technology boom in India, widowhood in cities vs. rural areas, child brides and widows, AIDS, and even Indira Ghandi. Dr. Giri reported on several pieces of legislation she introduced to parliament which will help widows in her country, but emphasized the need for the culture and particularly men’s attitudes to change so that the laws will be enforced. Pointing out that even in the United States only a small percentage of women are in Congress, she spoke about her goal of having a mandate to have 33 percent of India’s Parliament allocated to women. In discussing women in leadership, Dr. Giri noted that she is the daughter-in-law of one of India’s presidents and could have accepted a ministerial position in the government. Instead she chose a path of leadership which allowed her to follow her heart “and bring many women along with her.”  

Position of Mrs X in the hands of Indian Courts

A case sent by Mr Anukul Nayak, Managing Trustee of Sradhanjali Charitable Trust

Bhubaneswar, India.

For centuries women not only in India but all over the world have been treated as occupying a secondary position to men. In India many social reformers look up the cause of injustice against women. As a result during the colonial administration period laws like Abolition of Sati (1829), Widows Remarriage Act (1856), Civil Marriage Act (1872) etc. were enacted

These laws need to be activated and utilised by concerned interests.  The first requirement is awareness of the law by widows themselves and how to use it.

In Bhubaneswar, Orissa  3 years back a lady was tortured by her in-laws because of the sudden demise of her husband.  After the expiry of her husband Mrs. X tried to stay in her home but to her ill fate she was compelled to vacate her late husband’s house with her small kid.  Now the house is being enjoyed by her in-laws.

Although she tried to use the shelter of law to fight against her in-laws to get her property back there were many rumours that her husband had gifted the said property to his younger brother who is insane.  The question is who will take care of the wealth if the younger brother is an insane man and also why the property is not going to the widow who has a small child who will ultimately inherit the property.  The case is at the court of law but unfortunately Mrs .X is unable to pay the fees to her Attorney to fight the case against her in-laws.

See the cases histories of our partner ASHISH for similar injustices.

A POEM

BECAUSE I CAN READ - MOTHER TO DAUGHTER

Because I can read,

I can understand. I can write a letter.

I can fill out a job application.

I can finally get off welfare.

Because I can read,

I can learn. I can help my daughter

With her homework.

I can inspire her to be better.

I can be a role model.

Because I can read,

I can succeed, I can

Contribute. I can live

My life without fear,

Without shame.

I can be whatever

I want to be.

Because I can read.