Widowhood: Human Rights Group Calls For Reforms, Abolition Of ‘Degrading Practices’ In Southeast Nigeria

•Says 8 out of 10 Nigerian men don’t write Will @ age 45

•Says 7 out of 10 men don’t write Will till death

•Blames Umuada

Jude Johnson

The South East geopolitical zone allegedly has the highest form of harmful widowhood practices in Nigeria, including shaving of the hair on a woman’s private parts, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Initiative for Women and Girls Right Advancement (IWOGRA), has claimed.

The organisation, which called for reforms or complete abolition of such practices that degrades women, said eight out of ten Nigerian men do not have a Will at the age of 45, while seven out of ten men die without a Will.

“Widows constitute a significant proportion of women in Nigeria. The 2015 World Widows Report estimated that there are about 258 million widows in the world, while about 2.2 million of them are Nigerians. Eight out of ten Nigerian men do not have a Will at the age of 45, while seven out of ten men will not still write a Will until they pass on”, IWOGRA emphasised.

Other harmful traditional practices, IWOGRA said, included keeping the widows in isolation and having them inherited and slept with by any of her husbands brothers and denying them of inheritance rights to everything belonging to the man, especially when they don’t t have a male child.

The Executive Director of IWOGRA, Nkechi Obiagbaoso-Udegbunam, stated these in an interview after submitting the report of a webinar it organised in commemoration of this year’s international widows day.

She said that in the South East, women were forced to drink the water used in cleaning the decomposed corpse of their husband to ascertain their innocence in his death while most times, the widows were compelled to marry the brother of her husband.

According to her, most times, if the widows refuse to marry their brothers-in-law, they would be forced to leave the family.