The World's 115 Million Impoverished Widows

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-06-24 13:30:00 UTC
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If you're a widow living in the developing world, the UN probably hasn't thrown many high-level conferences on your behalf. Widows might be among the world's most vulnerable and impoverished groups, but for the most part, their challenges tend to recede into the background.

Not for any lack of gravity about their situation, though. Globally, there are some 245 million widows, and according to a new report launched this week by Cherie Blair (married to former PM Tony Blair), almost half are living in conditions that can be described as "desperate poverty."

As a group, widows are incredibly diverse. Some are elderly and caring for grandchildren orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Some 2 million of them live in Afghanistan, where their husbands have perished in the ongoing conflict. At least another 740,000 are living in Iraq. Still others are quite young — child brides, now widows aged anywhere from 7 to 17 years old.

As Blair notes, women widowed in the developing world are at least twice assaulted: first by grief over their husband's death, and secondly by the intense stigmatization and abuse that often follows.

"In too many cases," says Blair, women are "pushed to the very margins of society, trapped in poverty and left vulnerable to abuse and exploitation." Some are cheated out of their husbands' property, or disinherited and rejected from their family home. Others are falsely accused of murder or witchcraft, and many are raped.

The world's widows are found most frequently in China (43 million), India (42 million) or the U.S. (14 million), as well as Indonesia and Japan. It's a large and growing group — already, there are enough widows around the world to populate France two times over. But the impact of widow victimization can't be represented through such numbers alone. According to the report, there are an additional 500 million dependent and adult children of widows, who are likewise subject to fragile security, forced servitude, lack of schooling, violence and more.

Among other objectives right now, the Loomba Foundation (which commissioned the report) is lobbying the UN to recognize an International Widows Day. Which, especially given the other kinds of days the UN is willing to recognize — International Civil Aviation Day, International Mountain Day, International Human Solidarity Day, et cetera — seems like a humble enough ask.

Photo Credit: configmanager

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
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