Mistreatment of widows a poorly kept secret

Millions of women in many parts of the world are facing discrimination and abuse simply because they happen to be either widows or divorced, according to a new report released by a US-based independent research organization. "Discrimination against widows and divorced women appears to be a phenomenon of many countries," said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org. In releasing the report's findings on International Widows Day, on June 23, he added that to some extent, mistreatment of widows and divorced women is also prevalent in many countries with advanced legal systems, not just traditional societies. Pollsters associated with Kull's group say a majority of people whom they interviewed in 17 countries representing nearly 60 percent of the world population think that discrimination is a fact of life for widows and divorced women. In 12 nations, just 28 percent of the people interviewed said there was no discrimination against windows at all. Similarly, only about 27 percent held similar views on the question of mistreatment of divorced women. Pollsters said they interviewed more than 17,000 people in China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia, Mexico, Britain, France, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, the Palestinian Territories, Thailand and South Korea. The survey shows that in many countries widows and divorced women suffer from discrimination of various types. In less developed countries, for example, it is often hard for a woman to secure property rights after her husband's death. In developed countries, on the other hand, since women live longer, gaps in a country's social safety net are more likely to affect women, according to the report. In the United States, for example, poverty rates for widows and divorced or separated women are far above the average. While there have been no large-scale studies on the full scope of discrimination against widows and divorced women, Kull believes that "the problem is quite widespread." According to the Loomba Trust, an international charity based in London, worldwide about 100 million widows and their children are ostracized, exploited, and harassed everyday. "For these widows, the widowhood means denial of basic human rights," Cherie Blair, president of the Trust and wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, told a UN gathering last November. Researchers say in certain societies, widows are constantly subjected to harassment. They not only face legal obstacles to inheriting property, but are also unable to send their children to school. That makes many widows and their children the most vulnerable and the poorest of the poor. According to WorldPublicOpinion, majorities in South Korea (81 percent), Turkey (70 percent), the Palestinian Territories (61 percent), Nigeria (58 percent) and China (54 percent) think that widows face discrimination. In India, up to 42 percent of people also acknowledge the same. The survey shows that majorities in Ukraine (53 percent) and Indonesia (54 percent) hold the opposite view. However, a majority of people in France, Russia, the United States, Azerbaijan and Egypt are relatively sanguine about the treatment of widows in their societies. Pollsters say many people in China believe that widows are more mistreated (54 percent) than divorced women (46 percent). This pattern is also present in Nigeria and the Palestinian Territories. According to Loomba Trust, in several countries widows are forced to marry their husband's brother and are often subjected to sexual abuse by male members of their husbands' extended families. Research shows that widows in developing countries are often abandoned by their families and forced to earn a living by begging, prostitution or working as daily wage laborers as they are usually illiterate or not very well-educated. According to a UN report, human traffickers promise jobs to young women, particularly widows, from Russia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Hungary and Poland, and then transport them to richer countries where they are forced into prostitution. Rights activists say the discrimination against widows and divorced women contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that, "everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedom...without distinction of any kind." The international gathering that approved the historic declaration on rights in 1948 was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The WorldPublicOpion report points out that divorced women are treated worse than others in six nations: South Korea (82 percent), and in most of the largely Muslim nations polled -- Egypt (80 percent), Turkey (72 percent), the Palestinian Territories (53 percent), Iran (51 percent), and Azerbaijan (54 percent). Pluralities also agreed that this was the case in India (46 percent). Out of 17 nations, only one -- Ukraine -- has a majority (56 percent) who believes that divorced women are not discriminated against at all. Another six have majorities who think there is no more than "a little discrimination" against divorced women in their country. These include the French (74 percent), Russians (58 percent), Indonesians (63 percent), US citizens (60 percent), Nigerians (56 percent), and Thais (55 percent).