By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The Founder, Helpline Foundation for the Needy Abuja, Dr. Jumai Ahmadu has called for the protection of the rights of all widows through the implementation of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition ACT(VAPP ACT) and property rights for widows in Nigeria.
She said that implementing the VAPP Act would save widows from all forms of hardships, ill-treatment, and injustices that threaten their survival, dignity, and well-being.
The Violence Against Persons Prohibition ACT, VAPP ACT, was enacted in 2015 to mitigate gender-based violence and human rights abuses in Nigeria.
Ahmadu stated that the Government should do more in terms of enforcement of the VAPP Act to ensure that widows rights can be highly protected.
” If we need to have a separate Executive Order, signed and backed up for their rights to be protected, to ensure that in the case of a husband’s death the property should just be left for these women.”
“Family members should not squander the property of late relatives, if a woman is responsible enough, everything the husband left should be bequeathed to her for the welfare of her children”, she said.
According to Dr. Ahmadu, Nigeria has beautiful protection laws, but the implementation is where the problem lies.
She raised concerns that many widows particularly in the African society suffer many stressful situations from in-laws and relatives, and pointed out that effective implementation of these laws would go a long way to protect the widows from wicked, inhuman and cultural practices.
She noted that most of the practices are oppressive and humiliating as they affect their health and ability to function physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in any environment.
Many of these widows suffer maltreatment ranging from isolation, violation of their human rights, dispossession of property, wicked cultural practices like bathing the corpse for the widow to drink as well as being forced to shave their hair.
Others are subjection to long periods of mourning, or even being chased out of the husband’s house in some cases, a situation that leads some of their children to drop out of school.
“Beyond the talk, let’s ensure that these widows are empowered through the instrumentality of government. Nigeria has all the enabling laws and policies, but the challenge we are having is enforcement. What the government can do beyond just protecting them under the VAPP ACT is for the government to ensure that there is a task force.
“Thankfully, the current Minister of Women Affairs is thinking along that line, to have a task force that will be able to swiftly attend to cases of violence, or a widow being violated by her In- laws, so when this task force is in place, it means the policies will be implemented, and if there is any default, people will be held accountable, she disclosed.
Speaking on the theme, “Widows for Peace through Democracy”, Ahmadu who has been in the business of caring for the less privileged in the past two decades, stressed the need for the Government and all wealthy Nigerians to support the empowerment of widows to make them self-reliant.
” Firstly, I like to thank the United Nations for setting out a day specifically to recognize the plight of widows and draw attention to Government around the world, Government should do more, to ensure that the rights of widows are highly protected.
” You know that democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people. It means the widows shouldn’t be left out. So, any widow that has the leadership capacity should be encouraged by her community, family, women, and the country at large to take up that leadership position so that she will be able to have a say in policy formulation or participate in democratic processes” Ahmadu said.
She stressed that when the widows are actively engaged, including political participation, they get busy and tend to forget some of their worries.
A widow, Miracle Adebayo, appealed to the Government to come to their aid, and pointed out that empowerment of the less—privileged widows, will help them to cater for their children with ease and reduce the number of out of school children .
“When you take away property left for the widows, they don’t have something to rely on, most of our challenges as widows are lack of financial support to start a business and lack of academic support for the children, house rent, so the Government should help any widow in this situation and rescue their property back for them” Miracle said.
Another widow, Felicia Onah, narrated her ordeal, “The wahala of widows no be small thing, especially when they are not from the same village. As a widow, I suffered loneliness and a lack of help from my husband’s people, and the only property he had was taken by his people. So many other widows are suffering the same injustice across the country. The government should help ” Felicia pleaded .
Also, Janet Yilluk who explained that she suffered both emotionally and psychologically being a widow, said beyond empowerment, the government should create an enabling environment for widows to meet and rub minds, organize seminars on effective resource management, and monitor them to ensure that they are not depressed by circumstances or suppressed by relations.
Founder of Helpline, Dr. Ahmadu, however, expressed regret that some few irresponsible widows, hand over their husband’s property to their next husband, leaving their children to suffer.
“But we have isolated cases of irresponsible widows, that as soon as their husbands passed, one man will just come and deceive them, and they will hand over all the property to the man, and the children will now be left to be suffering . In my experience with some widows, I have witnessed two or three of these cases here in Abuja”.
She therefore advised all widows to be empowered educationally, mentally, develop the spirit of “I CAN DO IT”, to live above their situation, be determined, acquire skills, stay healthy ,focused, strong and be committed to effectively manage the resources left behind by their husbands to train their children.
Daybreak reports that the United Nations, UN, has set aside June 23rd of every year as International Widows Day to raise awareness of the plight of widows.
