Nigeria Has 8m Neglected, Suffering Widows, Ekiti Female Lawyers Lament

Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti

The Federation of International Women Lawyers (FIDA) has decried the recurrent neglect of widows in the Nigerian society, saying the country has over eight million grossly disadvantaged and suffering number of such women in the country.

To reverse the trend, FIDA called for holistic implementation of the Gender-based Violence (GBV) Prohibition Laws and other relevant statutes that protect the rights of women being the best way to rescue them from poverty and all forms of discriminations.

FIDA’s Chairperson in Ekiti State, Oyinade Olatunbosun, said this in Ado Ekiti, during a media briefing at the weekend to commemorate the International Day of Widows, where the group distributed money to help some widows.
The beneficiaries were Mrs. Esther Kolawole, Mrs. Gladys Olonisakin, whose husband was killed by land grabbers, Mrs. Olayemi Olanike, and Mrs Ramatu Mathew.

Addressing journalists, Olatunbosun appealed to stakeholders to come together to fashion ways through which widows could be assisted to financially to earn a living.
She harped on the need for government to implement laws that would prevent stripping of widows of their rights, maintaining that, “widows’ rights are human rights”.

The FIDA boss added: “There are approximately 258 million widows globally, out of which Nigeria has a total of 15 million with eight million being grossly neglected. The figures keep increasing because of neglect and governments not doing enough to protect their rights.

“The GBV law provides for the protection of the rights of widows and women, which include prevention of harmful practices for women whose husbands died. We have sufficient laws on ground, what we need now is implementation.

“It is sad to tell you that we have got to some towns where they said widows must suffer after their husbands had died to protect and preserve tradition. All these practices are discriminatory and we are saying no to them,” she stated.
Olatunbosun called on government at all strata to put in place structures that would engender widow-friendly policies, which would be promulgated and implemented for their social protection.

“The traditional and religious leaders must look after the welfare of widows in their domains and not bug them down with unnecessary traditional or religious rites that will further dehumanise them after the death of their spouses.

“We say no more to practices of archaic, cultural, depressive and discriminatory practices against widows. In several developing countries, widows are treated as outcasts thereby making life difficult for them.

“Some societies still follow irrational practices like widows drinking the water used in washing the bodies of their late husbands, who often had been embalmed with toxic chemicals, so barbaric and discriminatory since this is never the position when the woman dies.

“These widows become vulnerable to both physical and mental violence and their kids are exposed to abuses and they even sometimes miss out in formal education,” the FIDA boss said.