2014-06-24 16:21:00

Widows in India on International Widows Day hope for a better tomorrow


The world observed the ‘International Widows Day’ on Monday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message that no women should lose her rights when she loses her husband. In a statement issued on the occasion, Ban said an estimated 115 million widows live in poverty and 81 million have suffered physical abuse and girls married to much older men are especially vulnerable. The day should be used to advocate for the rights of all widows so they can enjoy better lives and realise their great potential to contribute to our world, the statement quoted Ban as saying.

Meanwhile, widows from Varanasi and Vrindavan, in North India, on Monday expressed the hope that the new government will pay attention to their plight and work towards their welfare. "I did not get a chance to cast my vote as I did not have the documents, but I sincerely hope that the new government will work for our betterment," 60-year-old Bashumati Devi from Vrindavan told IANS.

"I hope we will get widow pension and people will consider us part of the society," she added. The widows were in the national capital to mark the International Widows' Day observed June 23 every year. They gathered here under the aegis of NGO Sulabh International. Maya Mandal, who has been living in an ashram in Vrindavan for the past 12 years, agreed with Bashumati Devi.

The 60-year-old said she expects the Narendra Modi government, who she voted for, will do a good job. The widows also expressed keenness on approaching the government to demand the introduction of the Widow Protection Bill in the budget session of parliament beginning next month. Sulabh International founder Bindeshwar Pathak said widowed women should not be discriminated against and instead treated at par with others.

"We want the society to change its outlook towards widowed women. The tradition of outcasting them has to be done away with. We want them to be respected and be able to live a life of dignity," Pathak told IANS.

"The government should focus on their (widow's) skill development along with their education and basic training for making them self-reliant," Pathak said, adding that all they need from the government is moral support.

Estimates suggest that there are more than 40 million widows in India and many, including girls as young as 4 years old, have been ostracised from society, forced to beg or prostitute as a means of survival. Traditional Hindu customs force a widow to be isolated and conservative Indian families see widows as a liability. They are thus reduced to utter poverty with no means for a livelihood. The irony of it all is that generally, for Hindu widows, the higher their caste, the more restrictions they face.

Many widows in India have been driven out from their homes and have no place to go to. They cannot remarry. Apart from minor restrictions like not wearing jewellery, they are forced to shave their heads and typically wear white. If their shadows were to fall on someone it is treated as a bad omen. Many of the younger widows are forced into prostitution. Many such widows land in Vrindavan - particularly, it seems, from Bengal. There are around 10,000 of them in this place alone and more in the surrounding countryside. Many come here to escape from brutal family homes or have been flung out by their sons and daughters-in-law as unwanted baggage.

No one really explains why thousands of widows find their way to the temple town of Vrindavan in the north of India often after having been cast out by their families. Vrindavan is on the banks of the Yamuna, a few hours' drive south-east of Delhi, and is associated with the popular Hindu deity Krishna who seemed to have spent his childhood herewith his sweetheart, Radha.

There was a time when the practice of Sati was prevalent in India where women voluntarily, forced by circumstances or actually under duress immolated themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Although present day legislation prevent it, life for them can still be hard.

Only 28 percent of the widows in India are eligible for pensions, but less than 11 percent actually receive the payments to which they’re entitled – meaning widows are at the mercy of their families.

The NGO Sulabh International takes care of widows living in six government-run ashrams and pays Rs 2,000 to each, besides having organised a series of welfare measures in the past two years. Life of around thousand widows has remarkably been improved with the intervention of the Supreme Court.

To highlight the inequalities involved, June 23 was officially recognised as “International Widows Day” at a New York-based conference at the United Nations in 2011. “Around 40 million of the world’s widows live in India and life for these women is particularly hard,” Pathak said. “Not only have they lost their husband, but then society turns on them stamping them out as worthless, undesirable and a burden,” he said. “Their plight is often invisible with many people unaware of the injustices taking place,” He added.

While eight per cent of women in India are widows, only 2.5 per cent of men are widowers, due to the fact that men usually remarry, Pathak said.

 








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