There are an estimated 258 million widows in the world, with one in ten living in extreme poverty. Widows are significantly more numerous than widowers, who usually remarry quickly, almost always to younger women – so tend to die before their wives.
June 23 is International Widows’ Day, officially established by the United Nations to draw attention to widows and their all-too-problematic position and neglected rights.
The word “widow” naturally conjures up an image of elderly women. But in most countries where 23 June is marked, little attention has so far been paid to children who become widows.
Every year, 12 million girls around the world under the age of 18 are married off, mainly in parts of Africa and Asia. These children sometimes do not attend school, or drop out as soon as they get married. Afterwards, they rarely have the opportunity to continue their education.
The millions of girls married far too young are mainly found in rural areas, where customs and discriminatory interpretations of religious laws often take precedence over modern legislation that has long raised the legal age of marriage. In these contexts, widowhood means social death.
AChild Widows Report in 2018 states that an estimated 1.36 million widows are under...
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