All the participants attending the Roundtable Discussion during the Parallel Event are also kindly requested to provide the information on the following questions required for the background paper. Please send the answers to WPD at director.wpd@gmail.com and WHR at csw@mail.com.np by 10th January, 2012.

Please answer very briefly and add other issues you feel we should highlight in our background paper for Roundtable Discussion.

1. What policies has your Government enacted and implemented in relation to the status of widows in order to reduce their poverty, ensure their human rights, and facilitate their full participation in society, and their general empowerment?
2. What data and qualitative information exists in your country on numbers, ages, ethnicities, religion, health and economic status, support systems and coping strategies of rural widows?
3. What are the critical issues for rural widows in your country? For example, stigma, poverty, hunger, homelessness and violence due to deprivation of inheritance, land and property rights; no access to micro-credit, agricultural extension services, education and training; dominance of discriminatory and harmful traditional customs and practice? The inaccessibility of justice system and irrelevance of modern laws on gender equality and Gender Based Violence?
4. If there exists a widows’ pension system or compensation for conflict-affected widows, what blocks rural widows from obtaining these payments? Bureaucracy, corruption, illiteracy, male relative interference, distance and cost or any other?
5. Are rural widows more exploited than other rural women in unpaid domestic and agriculture labour? Are rural widows more at risk from violence by family members and through harmful traditional practices and attitudes?
6. Is rural-urban coerced migration, to find work in the informal sector, or for begging, prostitution, and through trafficking, an issue that needs addressing and how?
7. What are the major obstacles to rural widows access to protection from violence, government and family support, pensions (if any), education and training, income-generating?
8. What recommendations have you for UN WOMEN, the international community in general, and for the Governments?
---Thank You---

An excerpt from the email Shelagh Daley sent to Margaret Owen, director WPD

From: Shelagh Daley
Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:03 PM
Subject: Follow up: Seminar on Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security

On behalf of Gender Action for Peace and Security and our panelists, I would like to thank you for attending our seminar ‘Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security’ on 23rd January. Your questions were excellent and helped to generate a very interesting discussion.

A video of the event will be available on our website soon. My live tweets from the event can be viewed on our twitter page: https://twitter.com/#!/Nowomennopeace or by searching the hash tag #UNSCR1325.

All the best,

Shelagh Daley
Campaigns and Outreach Officer
Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS - UK)
Development House | 56-64 Leonard Street | London | EC2A 4LT
No women, no peace. campaign

shelagh.daley@gaps-uk.org | www.nowomennopeace.org | www.gaps-uk.org

CONFLICTS create millions of widows and wives of the "disappeared", although there is barely any reliable data. Yet widowhood remains one of the most neglected of all gender and human rights issues. WIDOWS are mostly uncounted and unheard. In most conflict afflicted countries today even in peacetime widowhood is a form of social death; but during wars and their aftermath the discrimination, stigma, and abuse, including sexual exploitation experienced by widows of all ages is exacerbated and extreme, as is their poverty.
It is essential that the CEDAW GENERAL RECOMMENDATION contains a specific reference to this issue so that governments address the needs of widows, especially in respect of rights to inheritance, land and property ownership, protection from violence, and ensure that they are counted, heard, have access to justice, and are supported in their crucial roles as sole supporters of children and other dependents, and as key players in peace-building, reconstruction and future development.

The extreme poverty and marginalisation of millions of widows of all ages often makes them and their daughters vulnerable to forced prostitution, to traffickers, in their struggle for survival. Many are also rape victims and thus infected with HIV and AIDS. Displaced widows and their dependents fill refugee and IDP camps and are the last to be resettled and rehabilitated. Without rights, in desperation, more widows contemplate and commit suicide. As survivors and witnesses of crimes against humanity, widows also need special protection as testifiers to these in courts and tribunals.

ON behalf of the unheard uncounted millions of widows and their children of AFGHANISTAN, BOSNIA, BURUNDI, CONGO, IRAQ,NEPAL, SIERRA LEONE, LIBERIA, SOMALIA,SRI LANKA, SUDAN....but the list is endless .... we ask that CEDAW request all member states to address this important issue which if ignored, will frustrate all other strategies to bring gender equality, peace, reduce poverty, and prevent future conflicts. The poverty and discrimination suffered by widows in conflict and post conflict must be relieved, so that they and their children can positively contribute to their countries' reconstruction and development.

Thank you

_________________________________________________________

WIDOWS FOR PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY (WPD) strongly welcomes the development of a General Recommendation to Member States on addressing the specific needs of women in conflict and post-conflict environments.

The lack of data on widows, numbers, ages, numbers of dependents, needs, roles, coping strategies, support systems, legal status, access to justice, experience of widow-violence, discrimination and abuse and the failure of governments and other agencies to address widowhood issues severely frustrates other strategies and policies to resolve conflict, prevent future conflicts, promote equality and justice, and inhibits development, the Rule of Law, Good Government, and Peace.

Failure to identify the numbers, ages, needs, roles, life styles of widows is itself a form of discrimination under the CEDAW.

WPD REQUESTS THAT THE COMMITTEE REFERS EXPRESSLY TO THE NEED TO ADDRESS WIDOWHOOD ISSUES, and that Governments:
• Use Mapping and Profiling projects to identify numbers of widows, and gather information on their life-styles, needs, roles, and impact of widowhood on their children, particularly their girl children.
• Ensure that the voices of widows and wives of the missing are heard in all relevant decision-making committees, including peace-tables, constitution redrafting, and law reform commissions
• Support widows to form their own associations so as to be able to have a collective voice to articulate their needs
• Take all available actions to eliminate discrimination against widows; criminalize acts that deprive widows’ of their fundamental rights; modify public attitudes to widows so that negative stereotyping ceases
• Protect widows from forced remarriage, and from degrading and harmful traditional practices, including degrading and life-threatening mourning and burial rites, and punish those who coerce widows to participate in these practices
• Ensure that refugee and IDP widows are resettled and rehabilitated through provision of land, housing, and appropriate training and extension services so they can support their dependents.
• Provide appropriate health, education, training services for widows and their children. Including counseling services for widows who suffer post traumatic stress from witnessing crimes against humanity, war crimes, and are victims of rape.
• Adopt, or adapt the WPD MODEL WIDOWS CHARTER into the Domestic Laws.

____________________________________________________________________

The GAPS group with Michelle Bachelet in London, May 2011.

Commission on the Status of Women
Fifty-fifth session
22 February -4 March 2011
Item 3 (a) (i) of the provisional agenda*

Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and to the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly,
entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”: implementation of strategic objectives and action in critical areas of concern and further actions and initiatives: access and participation of women and girls to education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.

Al-Khoei Foundation (Iraq)
Al-Hakim Foundation (Iraq)
HelpAge International (UK)
National Alliance of Women's Organizations (UK)



______________________________________________________________________________________


Statement submitted by Guild of Service, India, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council


The Secretary-General has received the following statement, which is being circulated in accordance with paragraphs 36 and 37 of Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.

In our submission to the UN Commission on the Status of Women at its 55th session, the Guild of Service, India raises critical trends and patterns of concern regarding equal access and participation of widows and their daughters in education and employment for discussion and inclusion in agreed conclusions:
• Over three quarters of a billion widows and their children live in extreme poverty (one ninth (11%) of world population), leading widows to desperate "choices" to feed children, particularly pulling them, particularly daughters, out of school into arranged early marriages and other exploitative situations (begging, child labor, even trafficking).
• Huge and unprecedented recent increases in the numbers of widows are due to increased armed conflicts, ethnic cleansing, HIV/AIDS, "natural" disasters and other negative impacts of climate change, and the persistence of harmful traditional practices, such as forced marriage, that lead to increased risk of HIV infection and death of husbands, wife/widow infection and mother-to-child transmission.
• More widows increases families living in extreme poverty because discriminatory customs and laws, including lack of inheritance, land and property rights, and expulsion from the marital home, propel many widows into poverty.
• Widows, primarily in rural sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, face harmful traditional practices targeting widows, such as mourning rituals and extreme social isolation which restrict movement and personal autonomy, making economic activity difficult.
• Countries legislating against discrimination against widows tend not to enforce such laws.



________________________

* E/CN.6/2011/1
• Social exclusion of widows has severe economic consequences, additional to that of other women:
o While all women are unable to own land or property in certain countries, exacerbating the economics of women in households without adult men, widows are additionally feared as "unlucky," "witches", or causing their husband's death, and ostracized, making it harder for them to find ways to feed their families.
o While all women are likely to be under employed and less well paid in comparison to men, exacerbating the economics of all women in households without adult men, widows are additionally constrained from pursuing education, job training or employment by mourning rites requiring widows remain inside for up to one year or more and marking widows if they do go outside (shaved heads, all white clothing).
o Expulsion of widows and their children from a marital home leads many to homelessness, migration, refugee or displacement camps and increased physical insecurity, since widows are often unwelcome in natal homes
o Widows in certain rural areas are forced to marry a male relative of their deceased husband ("widow inheritance" or "levirate marriage").
o Social isolation and avoidance of widows often leads widows to miss training, employment, healthcare, education and other information and opportunities.
o Widows and their children face increased gender based violence in conflict-affected areas as women without the protection of men and may also experience harrowing ethnic revenge scenarios such as her watching his murder, his watching her rape, or both.
• Removal of daughters from school for early marriage generates a cycle as daughters become uneducated widows replicating mothers' "choices" for their children.
Education being a primary mechanism for escaping poverty, it is essential that governments address the social and economic conditions of Widowhood, using all measures to afford widows their rights to education, training and employment, and protect the rights of widows' children to attend school. In particular, we seek:
• Implement CSW54 agreements to disaggregate data by marital status as well as gender and age, not only in HIV/AIDS, but also to monitor progress of widows and their children: research Widowhood as a root cause of girls out-of-school and girl dropouts, and include data on child brides, child mothers, child heads of household, and child widows, on widowed families living within extended families, and on marital status of parents of children at risk (both girls and boys) to identify the disproportionate number who are children of widows.
• Combat legal, customary and traditional discrimination against training and employing widows, including inheritance laws and mourning rituals.
• Implement CSW48 to challenge stigmatization and discriminatory attitudes, and include Widowhood, developing campaigns for new standards of behavior and attitudes towards marriage, the value of education for girls, women's right to work, women's right to inherit and own land, widows' right to choose how to mourn, and other human rights.
• Fund widows' groups to ensure widows and their children are informed of education and employment programming, including those who cannot read.
• Design education and training for the hard-to-reach, including widows and their children, particularly those in hiding, homeless, in transit, refugee, internally displaced or humanitarian relief camps, living with disabilities, or otherwise too distant. Plan contingencies for power outages, particularly in rural areas, if strategies involve mobile phones or computers.
• Design retention supports for widows and their children, including childcare at school for children of student mothers and for students after school.
• Ensure programming for out-of-school youth includes widows and the children of widows.
• Provide rights education and life skills training to parents, including widows, as well as students, and include the rights of widows and other women living without adult men in curricular material.

Progress on CSW's 51st session, "The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child," is incomplete until girl widows and the daughters of widows are included in policies, programs, outreach, monitoring and data collection. To redress this:
• Redefine campaigns combating child marriage to include child brides becoming child widows and widow inheritance, since inherited widows may still be children.
• Implement Paragraph 13 of the CSW51 Report calling Governments to include widows and their children:
o Ensure harmful laws include inheritance, land and property laws and other discrimination against widows, including social exclusion (13f)
o Develop countrywide birth, death, and marriage registries (13j). Since marriage is the greatest source of HIV infection risk for women, use such registries to target married men, and their wives, former wives (widows, divorced, abandoned) and other sexual partners, requiring both husband and wife, or father and mother, to attend sessions during registration covering HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention, reproductive health, family planning, nutrition, and the importance and availability of birth attendants.
o Ensure Country Reports to the UN include marital status and other data on households without adult men (13j).
• Explicitly include Widowhood, daughters of widows, girl widows, marital status and households without adult men in
o Every subsection of paragraph 14
o Paragraph 15: encouraging treaty bodies to invite States to address the situation of girls
o the financial commitments of paragraphs 16 and 17
• Include Widowhood as a key paragraph 18 component of the issues facing girls.
More generally, we seek support for:
• UN Special Report on Widowhood in Conflict collaborating with widows' organizations modeled on the Machel Report on Children in Conflict
• UN Special Rapporteur on Widowhood
• UN, Governments' and Donors' funding of widows' groups to represent widows collectively in decision-making, peace negotiations, and on committees for constitutional and law reform; forming widows' groups where none exist.
• Naming the knowledge gap on widows as a major obstacle to gender equality, human rights and the Millennium Development Goals.
• Including marital status in UN 5-year Questionnaires to develop Member Country profile statistics, disaggregating gender data by marginalized population and marginalized population data by gender.
• Funding alternate data collection methods (e.g., National Mapping and Profiling Projects), since conventional census methods inadequately capture data on widows.
• CEDAW "General Recommendation" urging State Parties to address Widowhood issues in their own countries and Questionnaires on Widowhood.
• "Widows" as a UNSCR 1325 National Action Plan implementation category.
• UN conferences in Africa and Asia in 2011-2013, on Widowhood, Human Rights, Poverty and Justice, based on UN and international development agency (Commonwealth Secretariat, World Bank) findings on Widowhood.
• Mainstreaming Widowhood issues into all international and regional policy meetings, including all conferences on Human Rights, HIV/AIDS, Trafficking, Peace and Security, Violence Against Women, Poverty Eradication, and Least Developed Countries to effectively implement UN system goals.

We wish to acknowledge our sister organization Widows for Peace through Democracy and its Founder Director Margaret Owen for her support in the writing of this submission.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Charlotte handing over the petition to Lynne Featherstone MP.
Many thanks to Charlotte for standing in for me, and many thanks to Sharon for all her preparation, which benefited both GADN and GAPS members!

Laura Hotchkiss, GAPS Director
www.gaps-uk.org

Activists ask Government Champion to make 1325 her New Year’s Resolution

Activists from the Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS) coalition yesterday presented Government Champion for tackling International Violence Against Women Lynne Featherstone MP, with a petition asking her to prioritise women affected by conflict.

The petition is part of the No women No Peace Campaign focussing on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 which recognises the devastating impact of conflict on women and the importance of women’s involvement in peacebuilding. Over 1,200 people signed the petition which asks Ms Featherstone to make UN Resolution 1325 her New Year’s Resolution.

The No Women No Peace campaign presses for the full implementation of UN Resolution 1325 and makes the case that in order to build stable societies women must be included in all aspects of peacebuilding.

The signatures were presented by Charlotte Onslow, Chair of GAPS, at a meeting between Lynne Featherstone and representatives from civil society.


Laura Hotchkiss, GAPS Director said:

Security Council Resolution 1325 was unprecedented when passed in 2000. Progress has stalled. For women in conflict to feel its effect government must now reassert its importance. Over 1,200 people have signed this petition to ask Lynne Featherstone MP to put women, peace and security at the centre of her work as the Government’s Champion for tackling International Violence Against Women.


Notes to editor:

1) For interviews with No Women No Peace members contact Natalie Sharples on 020 7922 7776, natalie.sharples@gaps-uk.org, nowomennopeace.org

2) No Women No Peace is a campaign by Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS UK) a network of 14 human rights and development organisations.

3) 10 years on from UN Resolution 1325 the international community is still failing to protect women. Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) continues to be used as a strategic weapon of war. SGBV which Includes rape, forced impregnation, forced abortion, trafficking, sexual slavery, and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS – is one of the defining characteristics of contemporary armed conflict.

4) October 2010 marked the 10-year anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Resolution 1325 recognises the devastating impact of conflict on women and states that women must be involved in building peace from the earliest stages. No Women No Peace focuses on women’s participation as a necessary precursor to ensuring the issues women face in conflict are addressed.



Natalie Sharples - Campaigns and Outreach Officer
No women, no peace. campaign
Gender Action for Peace and Security
+44 (0) 207 922 7776
www.gps-uk.org

Sign our petition. Tell the Government to make Resolution 1325 its New Year's Resolution!

ADDRESSING THE NEEDS AND SUPPORTING THE CRUCIAL ROLES OF WIDOWS
IN SOCIETY, PARTICULARLY IN CONFLICT AND POST-CONFLICT SCENARIOS

   
Proposers:    ICW-CIF General Well-Being and Social Issues S/Cs
Seconder:     NCW GB in association with Affiliate - Widows for Peace through Democracy

Recognizing the importance of addressing the needs and acknowledging the crucial roles of widows, of all ages, in the context of family support, poverty reduction, discrimination, gender-based violence, peace-building and the HIV/AIDS pandemic;

Aware of the unprecedented increase in the numbers of widows in the last decades due to armed conflict, ethnic cleansing, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, child marriage to older partners, and many other factors;

Noting the absence of reliable statistics on this issue and its general neglect by governments and the international community;

Aware that lack of rights to inheritance, land and property, social stigma and the prevalence of harmful traditional practices have disastrous consequences not only for the widows but for their children, especially their daughters, depriving them of shelter, food and education, and putting them at risk of economic and sexual exploitation;

Noting that in spite of international and national legislation to eliminate discrimination against women, widows’ lives, being mostly determined by discriminatory interpretations of custom or religion, have not benefited from these laws;

Further noting that widowhood is a root cause of poverty and that poverty breeds a cycle of conflict;

Conscious that widowhood remains the most neglected of all gender and human rights issues:

Resolution ratified by the ICW-CIF GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 14-19 October 2009, Johannesburg, South Africa (in association with National Council of Women of Great Britain and Widows for Peace through Democracy).

Status - adopted unanimously.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: whr
Date: Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 10:59 AM
Subject: Regarding WPD


Dear All,

We would like to emphasize that WPD is necessary to raise the voices of widows from all around the world.

Regards,
Lily
Founder President,
Women for Human Rights, single women group
www.whr.org.np

“Widows’ Voices – Empowered”

Action:             THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN

Calls upon all member National Councils:

a. to urge their respective Governments to ensure that widows have full equality within society, by removing all forms of discrimination against widows and their families, including harmful traditional practices; and by providing them with full rights to ownership of land and inheritance rights, and with equal rights to social support and financial benefits;

b. to support the development of widows’ associations in order that their voices may be heard in formulation of policy in those areas;

c. with the assistance of the ICW Permanent Representatives to the United Nations, to urge their governments to support the call for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to commission a Special Report on the Situation of Widows in Conflict and Post-Conflict Scenarios, and for the United Nations to establish mechanisms to fill the gap in data and ensure that the voices of widows are heard in peace-building and reconstruction deliberations, in the spirit of UN SCR 1325 also SCR 1820 and the Millennium Development Goals.

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN
October 2009

Why WIDOWHOOD issues are important: The poverty and low status of widows is a cross-cutting theme, both in the CEDAW and in the BPFA. Widows’ low status affects the whole of society and its future. This discrimination and marginalisation impacts negatively on their children who are often made homeless and deprived of education, making them vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation, and entrapment in prostitution, crime and even terrorism. In particular, in conflict and post-conflict scenarios, widows, many struggling to survive as IDPs and Refugees, need special support so they can participate fully in peace-building and reconstruction.

Past articles:

For the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action  - ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

Contribution from the NGO caucus on minority women in the ECE region
Item 5 – Gender-sensitive economic policies in the context of the economic crisis
Rapporteur Hélène Sackstein – International Alliance of Women

By minority women our caucus means all those who are different in some way from the majority of women in their country because of their ethnicity, their origin, their religion, their extreme poverty, their sexual orientation and gender identity, their marital status, their life style and women with disabilities. Unfortunately, the list is far from exhaustive. These women are the target of multiple discriminations; yet, they can be key in facilitating the integration of minority communities and it would prove to be most cost-effective to invest in them.

We have noted that there has been very limited consideration in this 15th year review of the Beijing Platform for Action and that women tend to be dealt with as a monolithic mass with essentially similar needs and demands with just passing mention of minority women, as if one size fit all. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action provide a road map to deal with some of the negative impacts of economic policies on minorities, even during economic crises.

The Beijing Declaration stresses a commitment to social justice and urges governments to listen to voices of all women, everywhere with particular attention to their diversity, their roles and circumstances.

The Global framework of the Platform for Action, in a specially relevant section, notes that economic programmes are not designed to minimize their negative effects on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of women, nor have they been designed to assure positive effect on them by preventing their further marginalization in economic and social activities while the Strategic objectives emphasize that the Platform for Action is intended to improve the situation of all women without exception while paying special attention to groups that are most disadvantaged.

In this context, we urge governments to, at the very least:
• Develop and implement preliminary assessments of impact on minority populations, particularly on women and girls, for any new economic programmes, before putting them place.
• Review existing European and national legislation and socio-economic policies in the light of their impact on the reduction of gender inequalities, by addressing all forms of discrimination and social exclusion.
• Ensure the participation of minority women in the development of more effective economic and social policies and programmes, giving real weight to their inputs.
• Develop campaigns against violence, including homophobia, in business and industry as it impacts negatively on the physical and mental health of employees and reduces their productivity.
• Ensure equality of social protection for lesbian families, including in cases of immigration linked to employment, especially for binational couples.
• In view of the increased numbers of widows of all ages, ensure that policies address not just their needs but also acknowledge and support their positive roles in society.
• Ensure adequate funding for minority women organizations to enhance their collective voice and participation at all levels of decision-making regarding their status and needs.
• Pay special attention to the situation of minority women during the 2010 European year to combat poverty and social exclusion.

Finally, we stress that, even in a financial crisis, women’s rights are still human rights as contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and must be effectively mainstreamed throughout all socio-economic policies and programmes of the region.

We look forward to having our recommendations reflected in the Chairperson’s conclusions.

Margaret Owen, Director of WPD's additional response below:

WIDOWS are never mentioned in the BPFA, nor in its OUTCOME document. The discrimination experienced by widows, especially in the context of HIV/AIDS, the lack of access to appropriate and affordable health care, the increased incidence of violence to widows, GBV perpetrated by both family members, as non-state actors, and by communities, due to widows' poverty and marginalisation are issues that we feel WHO must now urgently address.

_________________________________________________________________________

CSW and the Brief History of One Word......

From Margaret Owen's blog on Open Democracy, see link:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/csw-2009/margaret-owen/2009/03/17/why-on-earth-are-the-un-member-states-so-blind-so-hopeless-and-so-unimaginative

After eight days  and evenings of effort, meetings, draftings, lobbying, talking, to all and sundry (Senior UN officials, government, NGOs) at the 53rd Session of the CSW and a fortune spent on getting to New York and paying for our incredibly overpriced hotel beds ( as the £ dived)  in order to get WIDOWS and WIDOWHOOD at least referenced in the Agreed Conclusions on the priority theme " Equal Sharing of Responsibilities between women and men, including care-giving in the context of HIV/AIDS", today I am gob smacked by our defeat. 

The "widow" word is barely there.  How incomprehensible, scandalous and stupid.

It's well known by now that across the developing world in general and in conflict affected countries in particular, widows are systematically targeted for rape and worse,deliberately or recklessly infected with the HIV virus, and, as widows, mostly evicted from their homes, deprived of inheritance, land and property. They are often the sole carers of children, other orphans, sick, wounded, elderly and traumatised.  Key providers in their communities. Yet their poverty and their crucial roles go unaddressed, either by the UN, the donors, or governments.

Below is our modest proposed addition to the Agreed Conclusions, totally supported, I am proud to say, by our own UK delegation to the CSW and indeed by the UK mission to the UN who had sent it on to the EU (European Union) group. We had to make an addition, not an amendment, since there was no where in the draft document that gave us an opening for an insertion... 

"CONDUCT RESEARCH AND IDENTIFY THE GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE AND THE SPECIAL NEEDS AND ROLES OF WIDOWS OF ALL AGES AS CAREGIVERS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE  HIV/AIDS PANDEMIC IN ORDER TO, INTER ALIA, PROTECT THEM FROM DISCRIMINATION, VIOLENCE, HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES, AND ENSURE THEIR RIGHTS TO INHERITANCE, LAND AND ACCESS TO BOTH THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUAL PARTICIPATIPN IN PEACE BUILDING, RECONCILIATION AND RECONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES"

But we were up against powerful rivals with strong caucuses and global support: children and the "older women". We could not join up with the latter, for we needed to dispel the myth that widows are "old". Many are young and may still be children - child brides for widowers whose wives have died from AIDS. When will the international community get to understand that behind the mass of impoverished hungry homeless children, there are widowed mothers? If their needs and roles are not addressed, there is no hope for reducing child poverty, getting children into education or achieving any of the Millennium Development Goals 

Great if that had gone in. Who could object?  But it was not to be. Alas, we did not have a "caucus" like the girl child, youth and the older women caucuses that bring lots of different lobbying NGO groups together.  Next year if I can ever bear (or afford to return) we will have set one up: Widowsaction.caucus and maybe we will be more powerful and effective as we get more support from NGOs from all the different regions.

Activities and campaigns focusing on children always win hearts and therefore money.  Raising support and funding to get widows' voices heard, and widow's roles acknowledged and supported is, by comparison, a bitter and thankless task. Ministries of Women, in developing countries, most with derisory funding, rarely have the capacity to address the status of widows, let alone count how many their country is host to. (See Iraqi Minister for Women's Resignation speech in February when she spoke of the "army of widows" her department was unable to help)

Never mind that never before in human history has there been such an explosion in the numbers of widows, children, young women, and the elderly - and that these are the poorest, most stigmatised and marginalised women in the world, no one really wants to know. At least our UK delegation listened to us and backed us.  

Today, to my intense disappointment, I opened my laptop and used the "find" key.  One pathetic mention that gives no impression or information on the appalling situation of widows in the context of HIV/AIDS, conflict, poverty, violence and stigma. Widows in this setting, especially if they are older women, are often accused of being "witches"; many are beaten and killed. Yet they are the people solely responsible for raising the next generation, finding shelter, food, water, and safety. Why on earth are the Member States so blind, so hopeless, so unimaginative and uncreative?

This is what we got in the Agreed Conclusions for all our efforts:

"Develop multi sectoral policies and programs and identify, strengthen and take all necessary measures to address the needs of women and girls, including older women and widows, infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS, and those providing unpaid care giving, especially women and girls heading households, for, inter alia, social and legal protection, increased access to financial and economic resources including micro-credit and sustainable economic opportunities, education including opportunities to continue education, as well as access to health services, including affordable antiretroviral treatment, and nutritional support".

Hopeless. Ineffective. Should I be over the moon for having spent £1,500 being in New York to get just this tiny mention? 

And now they've decided that the 54th CSW will be on "implementation of the Beijing PFA"    What? All over again? The 12 action areas which have never, in 14 years, been implemented?   See what I mean. Why come back next year? ...and yet and yet....just the carrot of that tiny word appearing in a document pulls, attracts, seduces...................

Extract from CSW in New York

Conduct Research and identify the Global demographic profile and the special needs and roles of widows of all ages - as Caregivers - in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in order to, inter alia, protect them from discrimination, violence, harmful traditional practices, and ensure their rights to inheritance, land, and access to both their human rights and equal participation in peace building, reconciliation and reconstruction activities.

Suggestions For Recomendations From The CSW53 Roundtable On Widowhood:

TO THE GOVERNMENTS, UN, DONORS, AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY.
General to all engaged in policy making relating to CEDAW, BPFA, AIDS reduction; MDGs; VAW;1325/1820 and UN SCRs 1325 and 1820, MAINSTREAM WIDOWHOOD issues in all relevant decision-making.

• Cease assumptions that “women” are an homogenous whole.
• Governments, UN, Donors to support WIDOWS “banding together” in order to have them represented in policy making
• Fill the gap in data through supporting Mapping and Profiling involving widows’ NGOs working with M O W and Ministries of Statistics
• The UN S-G to commission a Special Report on the status of widows in selected countries afflicted by conflict, the AIDS pandemic, poverty and violence
• The UN S-G to appoint a Special UN Rapporteur on Widowhood.
• CEDAW to develop a Questionnaire to be sent to member states on status of widows including reliable statistics.
• UN, (OSAGI, UNFPA, UNDP, UNIFEM) with Commonwealth Secretariat, World Bank and other international development agencies to host an INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, to take place in Africa, on WIDOWHOOD, HUMAN RIGHTS, POVERTY AND JUSTICE in 2010.

The Lady Fiona Hodgson, [Acting Chair], Baroness Joyce Gould, [Chair of Women's National Commission and Advisory Board of the WPD], Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro [Deputy Secretary General of the UN] Patricia de Mowbray, [Trustee of the WPD], and Margaret Owen, Director of the WPD at the 53rd CSW in New York.

Previous Publications

The priority theme of the 53rd Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women is: The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS.

WPD regards the selection of this topic as a unique opportunity to increase awareness of the significant and heavy responsibilities that widows carry, both as young widowed mothers and as older and elderly widowed grandmothers, in caring for orphaned children and grandchildren and other dependents (the old, the sick, and the frail) in communities where so many men have died.

Insufficient attention has been paid to the needs and the roles of widows in the context of the AIDS pandemic and caring generally. In many developing countries widowhood itself is a “social and economic death”. Many widows survive in extreme poverty, unable to enjoy their fundamental human rights (as enshrined, in CEDAW and described in the Beijing Platform for Action)

Millions of widows, solely responsible for caring, feeding, housing many dependents, face innumerable obstacles and challenges since they are denied rights, for example, to inherit from their husbands, own land and property, access essential services that would provide them income and the capacity to fulfill their caring obligations. On widowhood they risk being “chased off “from their homes; deprived of their property; face marginalization and stigma as well as abandonment as IDPs and in refugee camps. Coping strategies – often life-threatening - include withdrawing children from school, dependence on exploited child labour, giving away or selling the girl child to forced early marriage (often to HIV infected widowers), and prostitution. Often illiterate, widows are least likely to be able to access training for employment, or income-generating activities. Lack of land means lack of collateral to secure credit or a loan. The poverty of widows impacts upon the whole of society since it is they who have the responsibility for raising the future generation, and caring for the sick.

It is imperative that the HIV/AIDS Caring Issues are seen from the perspective of widowhood, also of conflict and peace building scenarios, and within the prism of implementation of UNSCR 1325 and 1820. Governments and the international community need to ensure that peace accords accommodate the needs of widows for support in their caring roles; that new constitutions and laws expressly address the needs, roles and rights of widows to fully participate in society and in development and reconstruction, are protected from violence, and are relieved of their poverty, fear, and abandonment. Strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals must also address the poverty and marginalisation of widows, and acknowledge widows’ crucial roles as carers and providers for the families who may also have been fragmented by armed conflict and ethnic cleansing.

The UK Women’s National Committee supports this meeting and is accrediting WPD, as a UK based Ngo to the CSW.

Other Publication links:
UN CSW REPORT ON WIDOWHOOD MEETING WPD 2006:
http://www.griefandrenewal.com/widows_2.htm

WOMEN 2000 - Widowhood:invisible, women, secluded or excluded
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/wom_Dec%2001%20single%20pg.pdf

A WORLD OF WIDOWS - By Margaret Owen
Click here to read the Publication.

ON MALE RESPONSIBILITY RE: GENDER VIOLENCE IN POST CONFLICT SCENARIOS -
http://www.international-alert.org/pdf/GAPS_Men1325_report.pdf

WIDOWS CHARTER - CHARTER FOR THE RIGHTS OF WIDOWS :
Widows Charter document

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS TO ADDRESS THE POVERTY OF WIDOWS
http://www.un-ngls.org/UNreform/WidowsforpeaceandDemoc.doc