The plight of widows and AIDS - Women and Violence - Brief Article

Margaret Owen: www,oneworld.org/empoweringwidows

MARGARET OWEN WRITES:

See: WN 27-4, Autmn 2001 p.76-77

"Widows suffer widespread violence when their husbands have died of AIDS or when they have been raped and tortured in the context of armed conflict and ethnic cleansing. Raped widows are often ostracised by their families who should be supporting them.

Widows in many traditional societies suffer multiple discriminations and violence simply because of their widowed status. Often they are forced to submit to inhuman, degrading and sexually violent mourning and burial rites; in Africa they are 'inherited' and forced into marriage to a brother-in-law.

When a husband died of AIDS, widows in some communities in South Asia and Africa may risk being accused of "killing" them through withcraft or alleged acts of promiscuity. Many widows have been killed or chased out of their homes by their inlaws.

Widows' daughters are also greatly at risk: as poor girls without a fathers protection, they are often forced to leave school, and exposed to rape or early marriage with AIDS infected men - influenced by the myth that sex with a virgin will cure them."

COPYRIGHT 2002 Women's International Network
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group