The recommendations and draft resolution, based on thematic discussions among the representatives from 16 countries, including Japan, Austria, UK, Japan, Sri Lanka, India and Israel, emphasizes mainly 3 points -- all UN member countries should prioritize widows´ issues in their polices, marking June 23rd as International Widow Day and passing of a separate UN Resolution on widowhood.[break]
“The recommendations would be disseminated during the roundtable workshop at the 57th session of the commission of the status of women to be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in March 2013,” said Lily Thapa, founder chairperson of single women´s organization - Woman for Human Rights (WHR).
“We are happy that the conference went well. It means a lot for a country like ours where widows generally have a very poor status,” she added.
PHOTO: KESHAB THOKER
Meanwhile, Lord Raj Loomba, founder and chairman trustee of Loomba Foundation, a UN accredited charitable organization, remarked that this conference should help a great deal to change the status of widows worldwide, as they are still considered third-class citizens in many countries.
“I lost my father when I was just 10, but more than this incident, I was shocked later by the way my mother was treated for being a widow. So widows´ issues are not only theirs but more importantly the issues of children who often suffer in silence just because they have lost their father and their mother a husband,” said Loomba, who was awarded Forbes India Philanthropy Awards in 2012 under non-resident philanthropist category.
Talking to Republica, gender specialist Dr Ferdous Ara Begum from Bangladesh stated the outcome of the conference would indeed turn out to be a major achievement for the widows in South Asia and across Africa where widows face severe levels of discrimination.
“Things have changed but there are many parts of the world where widows are stigmatized. This needs to change and we hope the conference would help a lot in achieving this goal,” she said.
Bimala Parajuli, a representative of WHR from Saptari district, noted that it needs support of everyone to address the issues of widows. “Why the widows suffer is because the other members of the society look down upon them. So situation basically for the widows in rural areas cannot change until and unless the mindset of people living there changes,” she said.
While most of the international participants are scheduled to leave in a day or two, 200 single women from 73 districts are going to participate in a national workshop on Wednesday in the capital. “We are going to update our members from across the country about the conference and also discuss other local issues related to widows during the workshop,” said Lily Thapa.
The international and national conference has been jointly organized by WHR and South Asian Network for Widow´s Empowerment in Development (SANWED) with the help of UN Democracy Fund.
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