SIR: The United Nations celebrated the International Widows’ Day on June 23 this year, as every other year. On that day, it was as important as ever to remember and resolve to protect a group that remains vulnerable to shocking human rights violations.
Around the world, women already lead difficult lives. Along with children, women are a vulnerable group and the unjust targets of some of the worst injustices committed anywhere on earth. During conflicts, women suffer more than any other group as they have to navigate the dangers and abuses of conflict with providing what little stability their families may enjoy.
For those women who lose their husbands anywhere along the line, life immediately take a swift and savage turn. With the men in their lives and in most cases, their breadwinners leaving the scene, the society invariably turns against them.
In some communities in Africa, upon the deaths of their husbands, many widows do not just have to cope with the unimaginable grief that accompanies their loss but are also subjected to all manner of inhuman and archaic practices.
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The way some Nigerian communities treat women is in itself a reflection of the horrendous treatment women are subjected to and the way and manner they are perceived by the society as a whole. To correct this, there must be renewed and increased emphasis on the protection of women, especially those of them most vulnerable to abuses of various forms, like widows.
There must be increased emphasis on the implementation of the laws which protect women in Nigeria. It is only by protecting women as a whole that widows can be sufficiently protected.
These laws which protect women exist but, as usual, they find little implementation in Nigeria owing to the painfully little political will of those who should enforce them. Around the time when the Maputo Protocol on women’s rights is celebrating its 20th year, it is especially important that the protection of women and widows should move from policy and politics to potency.
Across Nigeria, religious organizations and traditional institutions most also take their roles in protecting widows and women most seriously. A gale of unbearable scandal washed over many Nigerians sometimes last year when a video went viral of a widow being paraded naked for supposedly killing her husband in Anambra State.
Protecting the rights of widows is a matter of human rights just like protecting the rights of women. It is significant that renewed calls and efforts in that wise should never cease.
Until every woman and widow is safe in Nigeria, a lot of work will remain undone.
•Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com