IWS Solicits Better Living Conditions for Widows

Mary Nnah

The International Women’s Society (IWS) has called on Nigerians and the world to continue working together to create a world where every widow can live with dignity, hope, and a sustainable future.

Speaking during  IWS’s  WINYEF 2023, a New Year feast for the widows with the theme “Sustainability for Widows Impacting Sustainability Programme: The IWS 24-year Journey”, the Chairperson, Widows Trust Fund, Mrs. Banke Adeola said that in Nigeria, widowhood most times comes with maltreatment, discrimination, and stigmatisation.

Noting that Traditions and Neo-patriarchy present challenges to Nigerian women, she added, “Some traditions bar women from inheriting land and property. Widows are forced to drink the water used to wash their husband’s corpse – in the belief that it will kill them if they are guilty of causing his death – or of being made to declare their innocence before a local deity. They may be forced to shave their hair. It is the most gruesome experience anyone could face.”

“As widows move through their own experiences of grief, loss, or trauma after the death of a spouse, they may also face economic insecurity, discrimination, stigmatisation, and harmful traditional practices. 

 “The stigma or outright rejection a woman who has lost her husband can face often leaves her abandoned. Superstition causes other women to believe they may lose their husbands if they associate with a widow, while some men fear they, too, will die.”

She said therefore that it was for this reason that IWS established a Widows Trust Fund 24 years ago, long before the United Nations ratified International Widows Day, which is at the forefront of sustainable development for widows in Nigeria.

For over two decades, over 1,500 widows have been empowered. Generous donations have constantly sustained their businesses.

The occasion had the presence of the First Lady of Lagos State, Dr (Mrs.) Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, led by the IWS President,  Mrs. Ifeoma Monye, where over 200 widows’ faces filled with quantifiable joy as they went away with not only lunch boxes but cash gifts, raw food items and various tools and equipment to enhance their earning capacities further and empower them to be self-sufficient; providing for their children.