Case Study

The issues of single women (widows) in Nepal

  1. Socio-economic-cultural-religious-caste-marginalization
  2. Neglect of increasing number of single women (widows) and wives of the “missing” due to armed conflict, harmful traditional practices, HIV/Aids, accidents, natural disasters, etc.
  3. Lack of quantitative and qualitative authentic data on widowhood.
  4. Single women (widows) are stereotyped exclusively as either victims or beneficiaries, and their roles as key resources and social capital in development and peace building are ignored.
  5. Increased vulnerability to violence and abuse of all forms.
  6. Violence against single women (widows) not addressed.
  7. Single women (widows) are not given right to decision making over their own bodies or in issues of remarriage.
  8. Poverty due to:
    1. Homelessness and displacement, “property grabbing” and “chasing off”
    2. Lack of inheritance and property rights
    3. Lack of education, vocational training
    4. Lack of Employment
    5. No/limited access to market
    6. No job replacement after husbands death
    7. Lack of secured shelter
    8. Discriminatory wages
    9. No collateral to access credit
    10. Limited, restricted or lack of access to services -health, nutrition, housing and social security
  9. Lack of education increases poverty, emphasizes low status and attracts exploitation, violence and abuse
    1. Single women (widows): lack of opportunity education, professionalism, vocational and skills training, and restricted or no access to educational services
    2. Children of single women (widows), particularly girl children, risk withdrawal from school on their mothers widowhood due the opportunity cost
  10. Few single women (widows) are organized into the single women group, they are often isolated, not “banding together", their voices unheard and they are not recognized as agents of social change.
  11. Very few civil society associations, including women’s organizations recognize widowhood as an issue
  12. Lack of community responsibility.
  13. The variations of vulnerability among single women (widows)
    1. Economic dependency that increases violence
    2. Migrant, internally and externally displaced, refugees
    3. Aging trend: Increased female life expectancy
      1. Elderly single women (widows) without family support
      2. Lack of allowances from government
    4. Young single women (widows) and their dependants
    5. Child single women (widows) Vyaikalya
    6. Trafficking of single women ( widows) and their families
    7. Sexual harassment in public and private spheres (especially within family and at workplaces)
  14. Lack of access to justice and proper legal provisions
    1. Single women (widows) legal rights/ inheritance and property rights not addressed in respective country situations.
    2. Single women (widow’s) allowances, pensions, compensation are discriminatory.
  15. Lack of access to media
  16. Unawareness of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 & CEDAW (Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women)
  17. Single women (widows) issues are excluded in National and International Action Plans of development, Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper (PRSP’s) and peace building
  18. Special budget not allotted for single women (widows) by international and national donor agencies
  19. Single women’s (widow's) Human Rights are not addressed in any human rights declarations like CEDAW, UNSCR 1325, Beijing Platform For Action (BPFA), Convention on Child Rights (CRC), Universal human rights declaration
  20. Single women (widows) and their children / dependants issues have not been addressed in Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s)
  21. Interim Draft Constitution addressed Single Women’s (widows) issues just as directive policies as not as an issue needed to be addressed as fundamental rights.