Dear readers, it has been 13 years since the world started to recognize the efforts, struggles, hardships and urgency of supporting women who have lost their spouses. Since 2011, 23rd of June each year, Tanzania along with other nations around the world has commemorated International Widow’s Day. With over 230 million widows globally, among them more than 1.3 million are from Tanzania, according to the latest census of 2022. The day specifically serve as a reminder not to forget this important group in the community and to help in create a society with fair treatment to them.
I met this woman in Arusha who lost her husband in 2018, “Handling a family alone is not an easy task at all” she told me, at 50 years old and a mother of six, she is just one of more than 1.3 million widows in Tanzania. We must admit, losing your loved one comes with unbearable feelings, let alone the burden of raising a family alone. It is within my knowledge, and that of many others that widows face significant economic challenges, especially those from poor or middle-income backgrounds.
Economic hardship, denial of inheritance rights and grabbing of property left by their partners are just a few of the common problems widows face regularly. The woman I mentioned earlier is no far from this kind of problems, she works tirelessly to pay school fees for her children, while relying on a small business, she never fails to provide for her family. What a brave lady!
The significance of helping widows is clearly open, spanning from economic to social. Poverty reduction by economic empowerment, social justice through legal aid on inheritance cases, and improving family stability by supporting their children’s education and welfare. It is not just helping the widow, but the whole idea is to protect the community from its own stigma and other acts that jeopardize the wellbeing of widows and their families.
Urgency of supporting widows is greater now than ever. The government of Tanzania along with other development stakeholders uses this day to provide economic support, legal aid, education and training to uplift widows from poverty and other injustices.
Individually, you can help by donating or volunteering your time to the organization that is dedicated to this good cause. In other ways, if she is among your relatives, you can assist in raising children or provide other forms of family support.
Here at RACAS Foundation, we join the government, and other stakeholders in Morogoro for national commemoration of International Widow’s Day. We uphold our values to ensure women are no longer subjected to oppression and humiliation, even after the demise of their spouses. We will work hand in hand with policymakers to ensure better and more inclusive policies that leave no one behind.