International Widows Day: widows’ economic empowerment, a critical factor in poverty eradication

It is usually traumatic when a woman loses her husband. In certain ethnic groups in Nigeria, the plight that befalls widowed women is usually a tale of woe, from the psychological and financial challenges to the burden of raising their children alone. There are also cultural demands of widowhood that vary with varying cultural norms and practices. As succinctly highlighted by a 2011 UN resolution, widows are constantly faced with a myriad of economic, social and cultural factors, including lack of access to inheritance, land tenure, employment and/or livelihood, social safety nets, health care and education. According to a 2015 World Widows Report, a widow’s plight is both a moral and economic issue as well as societal. It is moral in the sense that it offends fundamental standards of human rights, but also an economic and societal one, because it sets in a cycle of deprivation that can last generations, perpetuating poverty and threatening social stability.

In Nigeria, official statistics are not readily available to quantify the number of widows, but World Widows Report puts the global figure at 258million, with 38million of them living ‘in extreme poverty where basic needs are unmet.’ Without a full picture of the number of widows as well as their deprivations, and causes of such deprivations, it will be impossible to establish a safety net or put a structure in place for their social protection. Commemoration of International Days is gradually becoming a powerful advocacy tool as it offers many actors, civil society organizations, public and private sectors, and well-meaning individuals an opportunity to create activities around the theme of the year. One of such days is the International Widows Day commemorated on June 23 every year to highlight the problems of widows and encourage people to help widows in their struggles against the challenges of life.  

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