Margaret Owen, OBE, visits DR Congo and Pleas for the First African Widows Conference
By Jacqueline Musugani, Coordinator of Initiatives des Femmes en Situations Difficiles pour le Développement Durable et Intégré, IFESIDDI – WPD Network Member in DR Congo.
(The original version of this article is in French).
Margaret Owen’s visit to the Congolese Minister of Gender, Family and Children, Mrs. Mireille Masangu Bibi Muloko, has just launched a new era for widows, especially rural widows who are victims of conflict-related violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It is also a new era for widows in Africa, Asia and South America.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, widows suffer massive violations of their rights. Those in the eastern part of the country are the most vulnerable because of the wars they suffer. Widows in this part of the country carry both the weight of widowhood and the heavy consequences of wars.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rights of a woman are no longer guaranteed as soon as she loses her husband.
The members of the in-laws of the poor widows attack the poor widow, subject her to mistreatment, they take away all her property, even to the point of driving her out of the house they had built at enormous cost. suffering and deprivation with her husband while he was still alive. The majority of poor widows end up homeless after the death of their husbands and wander with their orphans.
Some widows immediately lose the funds of their deceased husbands even less than a year after the death of their husbands.
These difficult conditions of widowhood plunge widows and orphans into disarray and force widows to continue to suffer in silence, without any economic or social support. They constitute a class of people forgotten or rejected by society, neglected in the shadows… defenseless! At the mercy of anyone who can harm them and venture to violate their fundamental rights.
These unfortunate situations that widows go through have as a consequence, prostitution, early marriages of young orphan girls to try to earn a living, young orphan boys throwing themselves into the street.
The significant increase in street children is a phenomenon which largely has its origin in the loss of a parent. The poor widow whose property was taken from her by her husband’s family members, having lost everything, is no longer able to take care of his poor and miserable orphans. All these phenomena are also at the root of the insecurity and banditry that poison Congolese society.
Initiatives des Femmes en Situations Difficiles pour le Développement Durable et Intégré, IFESIDDI is an organisation that campaigns for the rights of widows to be guaranteed and for their living conditions to be improved, working for the rights of 750 widows in the East of the Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo bruised by wars!
This eastern part of the country is full of thousands of widows.
There are 50% of widows in rural areas following the wars.
The visit of Margaret Owen, OBE, Founder and President of Women for Peace through Democracy (WPD) and her pleas for the holding of a first African Widows Conference in DR Congo for the respect of widows’ rights could trigger the implementation of the UN resolution on the Situation of Widows (March 17, 2022), to take into account of the rights of widows.
This is a major event for Africa in General, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in particular.