WUNRN
Status of
Widows in
Issues, Challenges and Options[1][1]
By:
DR. MASSOUDA JALAL
Founding Chairperson, Jalal Foundation and
Former Minister of Women, the Islamic
1.
Overview[2][2]
A typical Afghan widow is around 35
years old. Around 94 percent of them are illiterate and an estimated 90 percent
have 3 to 8 children/off springs. The
average period within which a woman remains a widow in
II. Issues and challenges
Widowhood in
·
Negative
socio-cultural factors –
Among the
major factors that contribute to the disadvantage of Afghan widows, negative
socio-cultural factors are the most pernicious, most recalcitrant, and most
difficult to address. As long as society
is dominated by men with values that are antithetical to democracy, human
rights and gender equality, Afghan widows’ empowerment would remain arduous and
elusive.
·
Economic
factors -
Apart from
these, it is not unusual for Afghan widows to lose their inheritance entitlements
to male in-laws. Denial of property rights - mostly as a result of their
limited contributions and control over household income - easily pushes widows
and their children to the brink of penury. Without properties, education,
skills, and connections, and given society’s tight restrictions to Afghan
women’s mobility in public, it is not unusual for widows to stride into
absolute poverty than into economic productivity.
·
Political
factors – The pursuit of women’s empowerment and gender equality in
Except for
Article 53 of the Constitution, which articulates a guarantee that the rights and privileges as well as
assistance to women without caretakers and needy orphans will be ensured,
·
Human
development factors – Years of
war and the Taliban’s policy of prohibiting female education left behind a
female population that is overwhelmingly illiterate, contributing to the
stunting of their potentials to live a full and satisfying life. Thus, Afghan
widows are without economic skills, politically disempowered, physically
unhealthy, and excluded from the mainstream of social and political lives. Worse, more of them live with emotional
trauma due to the terrors of war and the loss of husbands, relatives,
properties and social connections.
Under the
Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled, widows and their families
receive welfare support. However, such
interventions do not represent an empowering and enduring response to the
situation. There are evidences, however, that appropriate interventions enable
Afghan widows to rise above their dismal situation. A number of international
organizations and NGOs implemented projects whose results proved that an
integrated approach to widow empowerment, such as skills development, building
of support groups, livelihood opportunities, counseling, and welfare support restore
their social functioning and enable them to get out of their sordid
predicament.
III. OPTIONS
We agree that the initiative to call for a separate UN resolution on the
empowerment of widows all over the world stands as the most ideal broad step at
the moment. Afghan women will benefit a
lot from the surge of international pressure that such resolution would
elicit. We have seen from the experience
on the CEDAW, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and many other
international instruments that there is tremendous power in international
solidarity. We therefore support this conference and all other conferences
leading to such UN resolution and we are ready to do our part in advancing this
agenda in every way possible.
Toward this end, we will mobilize our networks, lobby with our government
and our international NGOs and diplomatic corps in our country, educate the
public about the plight of widows, prepare case studies and gather statistics,
and work with media to bring widows’ concerns into the realm of public
policy. Solidarity and consolidated
power will stand as our best defense against the indifference of policy and
decision makers. In
The widows’ network should be aided in adopting a common platform and
framework that could be pursued at the international, regional and country
levels beginning with very strategic and foundational measures such as
institutionalization of national mechanism dedicated to widows’ empowerment,
conduct of studies on the situation of widows, adoption of a national law on
widows, and allocation of specific funds/budgets for programs and projects
promoting widows’ empowerment. Since the plight of widows is differentiated by
contexts, we need to be able to harness the resources and support of the more
advantaged widows to help uplift the situation of those who are not, in the
spirit of global solidarity and sisterhood.
Unfortunately,
· Establishing baseline information on
widows – It is
important to have a more accurate picture of widowhood in our country because
these will inform advocacy, policy making and programming. We will therefore try to put together all
existing statistics and studies on Afghan widows, their needs and issues, the
strengths and weaknesses of policy and program measures, available mainstream
resources that could be channeled to widows and factors that stand in the way
of uplifting their situation, as well as researches and case studies about
their lives. Based on this, we will develop and disseminate information
materials that could be used by media and other partners in our advocacy and we
will input our baseline information to any regional, sub-regional or global
database that will be established in this regard;
· Multiplying champions and raising
accountability for widows’ empowerment – We find it important to increase the number of influential people who
could champion the rights of widows in the realms of law, policy, and action.
We need to go beyond ourselves and get other people to own the issues of Afghan
widows and recognize that they have a role in transforming their lives. If the
government recognizes its responsibilities to the casualties of war, it is
equally responsible in rebuilding the lives that were destroyed because of war.
We will therefore facilitate dialogues among legislators, policy makers and
widows to generate organic information that could support policy and action and
to motivate as many ‘influentials’ as possible to advance widows’ empowerment.
Along this line, we will facilitate the drafting of a law on widows and use it
as centerpiece agenda for such dialogues.
We will also bring together institutions and organizations mandated to
improve the lives of widow to reflect on the effectiveness of their
interventions and work together for greater impacts and synergy.
· Lobbying for greater resources for
widows - Even if the
government is engaged in a peace process, the reality is that attacks and
killings by Talibans continue. This means more threats of widowhood for wives,
and greater number of children running the risk of becoming orphans. We believe
that the time to allocate funds for veterans, widows and orphans is not after
the war but before the war. The budget
for the peace process of my country needs to be re-examined to ensure adequate
and timely release of financial and other resources for widows and orphans. If
the government is giving huge sums of money to returning Talibans who were
responsible for the destruction of many lives, it should give equally huge
amount of money to those whose lives were ruined by war. This is a platform
that we will advocate with high level candidates in the coming elections and an
argument that we will use to motivate more women to run for public office.
IV. CONCLUSION
[1][1]
Paper presented by Dr. Massouda Jalal to the ‘International Conference on
Enriching the Journey towards Empowerment of Widows held o 4-6 February 2013 in
Kathmandu Nepal under the auspices of Women for Human Rights, Single Women
Group (WHR) and South Asian Network for Widows’ Empowerment in Development
(SANWED) and SANDEF. Dr, Jalal is a human rights activist from
[2][2] United Nations Development Fund for Women (2006); International Organization for Migration (2006); Institute of War and Peace Reporting (2003); United Nations (2006); and Basir Bita (2010).
[3][3] Yahweh, 2010.
[4][4] National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA), 2007/08.