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A Comprehensive Study on Widowhood and Discrimination

Ferdous Ara Begum

Former Member of the UN CEDAW Committee

Paper presented at the SANWED Workshop, Nepal

December 8-10, 2011

Distinguished Participants, Colleagues and Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor for me to be invited by SANWED, to this august forum, and have the opportunity to share my views on widowhood and discrimination from the perspective of the International Human Rights norms. I will also touch upon the country specific issues of widowhood and armed conflict; rural widows in extreme poverty, unemployment and lack of food security; widowhood and right to the property and inheritance; widowhood and violence and, sexual exploitation and trafficking.

WIDOWHOOD AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NORMS

Widowhood from the perspective of early marriage; war or armed conflict; extreme poverty; discriminatory social, religious or customary laws and practices can be seen as a great vulnerability and social isolation, misery and disgrace for widows. This can be effectively addressed through the implementation of International Human Rights Norms.

Here I would like to recall the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 25(1). The article reaffirms that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of all, including access to food , clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services and right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood and old age.

Likewise, CEDAW Convention also systematically addresses discrimination against women in all its forms including some specific forms of multiple discrimination and human rights violations faced by widows during different stages of life. The Convention focuses on discrimination, as women tend to suffer disproportionately from various forms of discrimination. Widowhood makes this situation more complicated and difficult. At present about 187 countries is party to the convention. To ensure widows’ enjoyment of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, States Parties as a party to the convention are under the obligation to respect, protect, promote and fulfill these rights.

In this connection, I would also like to mention the General Recommendation No 27 of the CEDAW Convention, which was adopted in 2010. The General Recommendation provided some specific protection to the rights of widows in Para 26 and 52 through the following words.

Paragraph – 26: “Under some statutory and customary laws, women do not have the right to inherit and administer marital property on the death of their spouse. Some legal systems justify this by providing widows with other means of economic security, such as through support payments from the deceased’s estate. However, in reality, these obligations are seldom enforced, and widows are left destitute. Some of those laws particularly discriminate against older widows. Older widows are particularly vulnerable to ‘property grabbing’.”

Paragraph – 52: “Furthermore, they should take measures to end practices that force older women to marry against their will and should ensure that succession is not conditioned on forced marriage to a deceased husband’s sibling or any other person.”

Despite all these international standards and protection rights widows, continue to suffer from discrimination, stigmatization, poverty, unemployment and violence. In many countries, widows’ lives are determined exclusively by patriarchal customs and discriminatory interpretations of religion at local level.

Despite all the hardship and social injustice, their vulnerable status remains under reported and unaddressed by the government. Widows’ voices are not reflected in the policy and programs.

Most of the State Parties are silent about widows’ rights. There is very little budget allocation, almost no planning or action plan for adequate social protection of widows. There is no reliable database relating to numbers of widows and their dependents in both urban and rural areas. National NGOs are also not taking strong move to demonstrate widows’ issues in the country specific shadow reports to the CEDAW Committee or complaints filed to the Optional Protocol to CEDAW on specific cases of violence, sexual exploitation and killing.

In reality, de jure and de facto equality has not been achieved in any country in the world due to inherent structural discrimination, which is reflected in discriminatory laws and practices that deny women’s right, in discriminatory customs and traditions that restricts women’s equal access and in marginalization and Social exclusion which generates feminization of poverty. Widows are victims of all these social imbalances, neglect and inaction by the national Governments.

WHAT IS WIDOWHOOD

If we talk about widowhood, we talk about women and we talk about married women whose husbands have either died, disappeared or were killed and wives of missing husbands. In some countries widows of missing husbands are called half widows as it is not known the status of their husbands, whether they are alive or not.

There is no homogenous age group for a widow. She may be a 9- year old girl child, a young woman, or an old woman. However, in each situation if she is poor, illiterate and if she lacks inheritance she is vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation, discrimination and abuse. Young widows from South Asian countries and war widows from Iraq, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka are subjected to financial or sexual exploitation and trafficking. Early marriage or child marriage with an older male is a common feature in most South Asian countries. In Pakistan very recently a 12-year-old girl child was forced to marry an 84-year-old man as per the judgment of Jirga as a blood price. Police did not arrest anybody in the name of religion and social tradition also claiming that the girl had attained the age of puberty.

WIDOWHOOD AND DISCRIMINATION - VIOLENCE AND RIGHT TO INHERITANCE

The social practices surrounding widowhood in the South Asian countries show a cross-cultural uniformity. In every culture or religious groups, widowhood is inauspicious. Widowhood in both developed and developing countries more or less marked as people to be shunned and avoided .In Bengali society both in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, widows experience tremendous psychological and societal brutality in the name of social and religious rules and norms. Even today, widows are accused of being ‘responsible’ for their husband’s death. They are pressurized to observe restrictive codes of dress and behavior; are excluded from social life. In addition, many of them are victims of physical and sexual abuse. If they own some property, they are often cheated of it .A widow loses almost every right in her husband’s house and there is no one in her father’s house to take care of her. In rural India, widows of all ages are sent to the religious temples to live rest of their lives, where many of them suffer from sexual exploitation and violence. Their food, clothing and life style are very much dictated by religious doctrines. Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s famous movie ‘WATER’ has truly depicted the sad story of widows’ life.

Social discrimination against widows of Hindu Community in Bangladesh is a serious concern. They are deprived of their economic rights. They have no right to the family property, remain mostly in social isolation in a male dominated society, and have no choice but to depend on their male relatives.

During 1981 in Bangladesh, nearly 12% of all females 10 years of age and above were widowed, as compared to only 1.2% of men. This is in part due to the age differences between husbands and wives, and the greater incidence of remarriage for widowers. Because of child marriage, and marriage to older man, many widows are still young women. Older widows in rural areas are excluded from social security benefits despite being one of the most vulnerable social groups. Tiger widows in the Sunderban area of Bangladesh also suffer from extreme poverty and stigmatization.

Under Islamic Law, widows are entitled to inherit at least 1/8th of the dead husband’s property and land. In practice, this share is frequently ‘managed’ and then taken by the brothers-in-law. In a 1995 Bangladeshi survey on property inheritance, only 25% of widows had received their rightful share in the inheritance from a deceased father, and only 32% from their deceased husbands. In Muslim communities, widows were treated as their sons’ dependents. Without an adult male to provide support widows, find it hard and sometimes impossible to claim their lawful rights to property.

In India young, child or older widows are mostly treated, as a social outcast. Widowhood for women over 60 is most prevalent in Northern Africa and Central Asia. About 10% of women in India or 40 million are widows, compared to only 3% of men according to 1991 census. Widowhood, along with poverty, illiteracy, childlessness, social isolation and displacement, put widows of all ages at risk of physical, sexual or verbal abuse and neglect and financial exploitation as well.

Remarriage is not easy for a widow in Bangladesh. In most cases, widows accept polygamous union where they do not enjoy equal rights in the conjugal life.

The main reason behind this is the poor economic condition of the woman who does not get proper education or does not get involved in any income generating activity. Thus, the question of economic security marks the nightmare of her widowed life. If a widow has adult sons, she may have some measure of security. However, if she is childless or has only daughters, she usually faces multiple problems, including isolation, harassment, denial of land, and even death. In the Jharkhand region of Bihar, of the 46 Santhal women persecuted and killed as `witches’ in recent years, 42 of them were widows with land rights.

Widowhood and witchcraft accusations

In some regions of Africa especially in Mozambique, Tanzania, Ghana and Burkina Faso older widows are often subjected to accusations of witchcraft which can result in psychological abuse, violence and in extreme cases, killing of older widows. Research shows that child mortality and morbidity, gender inequality and social exclusion of older widows, plus lack of awareness of widow’s rights, are the key underlying factors for witchcraft accusations. In eastern Congo, half of the adult women are either widows or wives of the disappeared men.

The Special Rapporteur on violence against women has highlighted the problem of witch-hunts in India, Nepal and South Africa. The murder and persecution of people accused of witchcraft in Tanzania is better documented than in most countries.

Even older widows in some African countries face witchcraft allegation and death threat by their family members after death of their husbands to grab their inheritance. Not only is that in some countries older widows forced to marry deceased husband’s sibling or any other person to keep the marital property within the family.

Widowhood and Armed Conflict

BBC report says that Years of conflict in Iraq have left the country with more than one million war widows and a shortage of young unmarried men. The situation may put social pressure to bring back the polygamy. Many of the young war widows are being trafficked to the Middle Eastern countries for sexual exploitation.

During November 2010, I have visited Afghanistan as an International CEDAW Report Reviewer. I have seen that war widows are suffering from extreme poverty, violence and sexual exploitation. Official report acknowledged that more than half a million widows who lost their husbands in the armed conflict are left alone to take care of their children without any support from outside. Many of these women try to burn themselves in a bid to escape from extreme poverty and hunger, violence and sexual exploitation. Hurriat province has a hospital only for burn patients who are mostly young women.

Many of the Bosnian Muslim widows, Tamil widows of Sri Lanka, Congolese widows of DRC, Rwandan widows , Nepali widows who were victims of rape by the militias and security forces demand justice and compensation for their sufferings.

Rural widows and extreme poverty

UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty stated that the achievement of “Millennium Development Goals” greatly depends on the strengthening of women’s enjoyment of full range of their human rights including gender equality and women’s empowerment. Insufficient or unequal access to education and training and productive resources for rural widows is a major constraint for their possibility of obtaining gainful and productive employment.

A significant number of women farmers in Bangladesh are unable to have access to fertilizer, cash assistance, and other government subsidies intended for farmers, because the land they work is registered in their husband’s name, according to government officials, NGOs and widow farmers. Because of the difficulty in inheritance rights to the property widows mostly unable to have access to the productive resources including bank loans. Lack of food security, malnutrition, lack of education and life skill training and limited access to job market are important problems that widows face in rural areas.

Indeed, 71% of the populations of the least developed countries and 55% of the less developed countries live in the rural areas. The rural areas are also home to 70% of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people. Adequate public investment in rural areas is important for States Parties to ensure balanced progress for all citizens in the rural areas.

Recommendations:

1. Implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1325 and 1820 incorporating war widows in the Development and Peace Building process:

As per CEDAW Committee recommendations, war widows must not be seen exclusively as victims; but recognized as having crucial roles as peace builders and restorers of the social fabric of communities and families. Therefore, it is essential that their voices are heard, and they are incorporated in the post conflict reconstruction, developments, constitutional redrafting, and law reforms as well.

An Action Plan based on SC Resolution 1325 and 1820 needs to be developed as has been done by the Government of Nepal.

Widows, who have survived massacres, witnessed the killing of their husbands and children could be key witnesses at any future trials of those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

2. States Parties need to develop a comprehensive Plan to eliminate poverty and discrimination against widows

States Parties need to address widow’s rights in respect of their livelihood, education, inheritance, employment, health needs and access to legal services in both urban and rural areas. Governments also need to generate a database for widows and their dependents. There should be adequate investment and budget allocation for the widows so that they participate fully in the development process and can enjoy their full rights based on equality with man.

3. Agricultural sectors needs to be strengthened. Right to property and inheritance needs to be ensured in order to empower rural widows in the local level: Rural women’s role in natural resource management and climate change adaptation as well as enabling policy environment that promotes gender responsive rural development need to be ensured. Rural women’s access to productive resources, technology markets and finance are essential, as these will generate more opportunities for rural women, including rural infrastructure and service-delivery need to benefit rural women. NGO’s active participation in this regard will protect rural widow’s rights.

4. Social Pension need to be introduced to reduce extreme poverty 

Social pensions consisting of cash benefits should be introduced to help extreme poor. The scheme should be framed in a manner that will not require recipients to make prior compulsory contributions .The Government of Bangladesh has introduced a social protection scheme in 2006 to benefit poor widows and divorced women including destitute women. Under this plan, Bangladeshi Taka 220 (about USD 3) is given to a woman per month. This program has already demonstrated improvement in the economic condition of widows. However, millions of older women and widows still require assistance. Social pensions are an important dimension of social security systems to provide support to extra poor widows in the rural areas.

Family pension scheme of Bangladesh helps widows whose husbands worked in the public sector. Issuance of voter identification cards for all adults, both male and female has generated a sense of security for women including widows.

5. Government should provide legal protection to widows from forced remarriage, and from degrading and harmful traditional practices, including degrading and life-threatening mourning and burial rites, and punish those who coerce widows to participate in these practices.

In addition, States Parties need to ensure free access to legal rights to widows of all ages and provide shelter homes to them who are vulnerable to violence and trafficking.

6. There should be shadow reports submitted to CEDAW Committee stating the nature of discrimination, violence, poverty, empowerment issue, property rights, and other situation of widows in the country to make liable the States Parties to address those issues.

7. Stereo typed attitude towards widows is a major cause for their vulnerability to discrimination, violence and disgrace. States Parties need to educate people about the rights of widows.