Margaret Owen. International Feminist Journal of Politics. Volume 13, Issue 4. December 2011.
Introduction
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and the subsequent resolutions relating to gender issues in conflict resolution and prevention provide a unique opportunity for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to raise much needed awareness of the plight, needs and roles of uncounted millions of conflict widows; and also of the wives of the ‘disappeared’. They need to ensure, for example, that widowhood issues are prioritized in all NAPs (National Action Plans) to implement the resolution and that widows’ voices are heard at peace tables. Regrettably, few governments have responded to this urgent issue. This neglect can frustrate other strategies to promote peace, since the particular forms of poverty experienced by widows is often transmitted to their children, causing grave inequalities and resentments that may fuel new conflicts.
Widowhood is one of the most neglected of all gender and human rights issues (UNDAW 2001). May be this is because the UN, governments and even women’s NGOs tend to view women as a ‘homogeneous’ whole and appear reluctant to focus upon a particular category, such as widows. This neglect persists, even though, in developing and conflict-afflicted countries, the numbers of widows of all ages have increased unprecedentedly and their poverty and marginalization are extreme. Few countries have attempted to gather statistics on this large cohort of women, or to systematically research the realities of their lives, such as: their support systems; their health, economic and educational status; their coping strategies; the impacts on their children; and their experiences of ‘Harmful Traditional Practices’ (HTPs), violence, inheritance, land rights and access to justice. The abuse and abandonment of widows is not an exclusive ‘women’s issue’ but one that affects all of society and its future. Governments ignore it at their peril.
Widows’ representatives need to be participants in decision-making committees during post-conflict reconstruction. They should be involved in contributing to constitution redrafting and law reform so that they can enjoy their rights in compliance with the principles enshrined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action and other international conventions and treaties.
Only one government—the Government of Nepal—has focused expressly on the needs and rights of its war widows. It invited the Nepal widows’ NGO (Women for Human Rights-Single Women’s Group (WHR-SWG)) to join its consultation on the Nepal NAP and is the first UN Member State to make reference to the specific situation and needs of its many widows.
Statistics
The final preamble in Resolution 1325 (preceding the action articles) notes the need to ‘consolidate data on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls’. This surely is a call for action to focus on widowhood. Although NGOs and the media from time to time give rough estimates on the numbers of widows and wives of the ‘missing’ in conflict-afflicted countries, there remains a lack of any reliable data. Quantitative and qualitative data are a galvanizing tool that can shock the international community and governments into action. Since 1325 requires governments to analyze the impact of conflict upon women and girls, it behoves them to use all available means to gather information on the numbers, ages, situation, needs and roles of its widows.
Wars will have radically changed the demographic profile of a country in conflict, where a common feature is the killing of men and boys and the raping and displacing of women and girls. Conventional methods of data gathering such as the census or household surveys may be impractical in post-conflict scenarios, where families have been fragmented and dispersed, and many people are internally displaced persons, in refugee camps or homeless and moving from place to place. But alternative methodologies have been developed and used successfully to fill the gap in data on widows. In Nepal, whose long conflict created many thousands of young widows, the majority of young mothers are under the age of 30. In this context, WHR-SWG Nepal has ‘mapped and profiled’ over 44,000 conflict widows in 52 of the 75 districts of Nepal, training the widows themselves in the villages to conduct interviews and collect the required information. So successful has this project been that the Nepal Government is now committed to including the category of widows in the next census. Such ‘mapping and profiling’ projects could be adapted for use in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka (Tamil widows), the DRC and all countries where conflicts result in many civilian, but mainly male, deaths.
In Iraq, a former minister of women’s affairs offered her resignation on the grounds that she had no resources to address the needs of an army of widows (Reuters 2009). We still do not know the exact numbers of Iraqi widows and wives of the missing. Estimates vary from 1 million to 3–5 million. The impoverished widows of Anfal and Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan, survivors of the Ba‘th regime’s systematic attacks on Kurdish villages between 1986 and 1989, have still not been counted nor had their basic needs addressed (Hama 2006).
In Afghanistan, at least 70,000 widows beg on the streets of Kabul, but the actual numbers across the whole country are unknown (Women for Peace through Democracy, n.d.). The suicide of desperate and abandoned illiterate widows is on the increase (Farooq 2007), while NGOs report widows selling their daughters, engaging in drug smuggling and forced into prostitution (Cortright and Smiles Persinger 2010). Widows fleeing forced remarriages to a husband’s relative have been found in prison for their own protection (Motlagh 2011). The deaths of civilians continue and every Taliban killed may indicate another widow.
It is thought that over 50 per cent of all women in eastern Congo are widows (Women for Peace through Democracy, n.d.). In Sri Lanka there are at least 90,000 Tamil widows (Agence France Presse 2010), of which 31,000 are under the age of 30 (Women for Peace through Democracy, n.d.). Many Tamil widows, like their sister widows in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have been victims of rape, and many are wives of men who are suspected of having been ‘disappeared’ by security forces.
Data and research are urgently needed, and should be a component of policies to implement 1325, in order to identify widows’ roles as sole carers of children and other dependents; as farmers and providers of food; and as potential participants in democratic structures at village, district and national levels. These women bear the responsibility for the next generation and its contribution to a country’s development. We need to know about the outcomes for the children of widows in the context of health, education, training and protection.
Poverty
Widows across a wide spectrum of cultures, religions and regions are often among the very poorest of the poor, due to the discrimination they experience in matters of inheritance, land and property rights. Almost all conflicts occur in countries where widowhood is a ‘social death’ even in peace time—but in conflict and post-conflict environments the situation of widows worsens (Owen 1996; UNDAW 2001). For example, in many countries in Africa, civil codes, administered by modern courts of justice, co-exist with religious and customary or traditional law courts. Widows’ personal status issues, including rights to inheritance, to land and to custody of children, are mostly determined at the local level by traditional courts or local religious or village leaders. In some cases, rural widows’ lives are determined by discriminatory interpretations of custom, tradition and religious law that treat widows as ‘chattel’ and subject them to abuse and exploitation, including sexual violence, forced remarriage and other HTPs (Widows for Peace through Democracy, n.d.).
A common ‘survival’ strategy of widows is to withdraw their children from school, either because they depend on child labor to support other dependents, or the opportunity costs of education are too high. The daughters of widows are the most vulnerable to this breach of their rights to schooling, and are at greatest risk of underage marriage or sale to traffickers due to their mother’s poverty (Widows for Peace through Democracy, n.d.).
In addition, internally displaced and refugee widows, wives of the ‘missing’ and their children are often the last to leave camps and be resettled, because they lack rights to own land which would give them food security and livelihoods (Widows for Peace through Democracy 2011). Perhaps the most ignored and endangered of all war widows are those of mixed ethnicity parentage or marriage who fear violence from either side of the conflict and can find no safe haven to hide in. Peace accords signed by military and insurgent leaders do not necessarily bring peace to the community and governments of countries to which these widows flee should also be addressing how to help them regulate their status.
Widowhood is clearly one of the root causes of poverty in developing countries. Since poverty and inequality fuel future conflicts, it is essential that NAPs on 1325 address the roles of widows as sole parents and the need for special protection for their daughters. The year 2000 saw the birth not only of UNSCR 1325 but of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD) and its partners are campaigning to get widowhood issues mainstreamed into policies to achieve the eight MDG goals.
Justice, Constitutional Reform, and the Rule of Law
Widows and wives of the ‘disappeared’ are often the only survivors of atrocities committed in the course of conflict. Their testimonies are key to successful prosecutions of those alleged to be perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The wives and mothers of the more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims murdered in Srebrenica in 1995 have taken the Netherlands government and the UN to court for their failure to protect them (Ludwig and Mertin 2006). Mass graves are still being discovered in Bosnia and women who never learnt the fate of their husbands may at last find closure when the identities of the skeletons are revealed with the help of DNA. Some 400,000 Rwandan widows, who survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide, have often failed to get the protection that they need. Those who have had the courage to attend the tribunal in Arusha to testify against their rapists and/or the murderers of their husbands have suffered humiliating questioning in the courtroom, at the hands of insensitive prosecutors. Others have been hounded by those fearing arrest and have had to flee to safe houses. Even today some Rwandan widows continue to live in terror and silence because their neighbors, who engaged in the genocide, suspect that they may testify against them for their part in the killings. In addition, governments need to take appropriate action to resolve the legal status problems of women who may never find out the fate of their husbands and are deterred, for both cultural and psychological reasons, from seeking a Declaration of Death from a court.
UNSCR 1325 exhorts member states to comply with the CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action. During post-conflict reconstruction, the drafting of new constitutions and establishment of law reform commissions offer a golden opportunity to introduce laws that guarantee widows their equal rights and protection from discrimination and exploitation. Widows should not be forced into remarriage against their will; they should be protected from gender violence, HTPs and acts that deprive them of their mobility, economic independence and fundamental rights. And clearly, the general public, lawyers and court officials, judges and magistrates need to be informed and trained that human rights are women’s rights and modify their attitudes to widows, as required by the CEDAW.
Widows’ Roles in Peace Building and Conflict Prevention
Widows must never be seen exclusively as victims, in spite of the evidence that they are in so many countries the most marginalized and abused of women. As already indicated, widows play crucial and key roles in conflict resolution, the restoration of the social fabric of communities and families and as carers of children, orphans and other dependents, including the sick, old and traumatized. Widows have important economic as well as social roles and are potential participants in local, district and national decision-making.
In Nepal, the WHR-SWG has so empowered widows through literacy and other training that many widows have been elected to their district councils, and of 41 women elected to the Nepal parliament, 11 are widows. It is also worth noting that widows are often the more able and willing of all people, including married women, to stretch hands across ethnic and religious divides and work with the widows of the ‘other side’ toward reconciliation and peace. Whatever faction their dead husband belonged to, widows can come together, as they have in Rwanda and in Bosnia, because they have common needs, roles and hopes: to live in peace, farm their land, have food and income and be able to educate their children.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Only 17 states have finalized their NAPs, the majority of them western donor non-conflict countries. Among conflict countries, only Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and Nepal have actual NAPS, with a few others working on drafts.6 However, there is little indication—apart from the case of Nepal—that plans for implementation made in war-torn countries are consulting associations representing widows.
At the meeting, ‘Global Action on Widowhood’ hosted by WPD at the 55th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, participants endorsed a resolution and request for the UN Secretary-General to commission a Special Report on Widowhood in Conflict. It also asked UN Women’s Executive Director Michelle Bachelet to address the situation of the many widows of armed conflict. At the same time, WPD has proposed to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that it develops a general recommendation to member states to address the status of widows in their countries. We hope that such initiatives will help to lift the blanket of invisibility from this challenging and complex gender issue that 1325 should also be addressing.