The Initiative For Women and Girls Right Advancement (IWOGRA), a not for profit organisation has stressed the need to end all forms of discrimination, violence and maltreatment faced by widows.
In a webinar conference held recently to commemorate the 2020 International Widows’ Day with the theme: ‘Achieving Full Rights and Recognition For Widows in Nigeria’, the group brought to the front burner concerns and interventions made for women while celebrating widows.
According to the founder, IWOGRA, Maryanne Nkechi Obiagbaoso-Udegbunam, the overall situation of widows in Nigeria has been overlooked over the years, adding that Women in Nigeria are faced with series of violence especially after the death of their husbands.
She said, “Widows are subjected to all sorts of dehumanising and degrading treatments that is not limited to having their hairs shaved, made to stay in isolation for a period of time, made to drink the water used in cleaning their late husbands’ decomposed body; they are inherited by any of their late husbands’ brothers as if they were a property subject to being transferred and denied property and inheritance rights.”