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A group of women seated under a tent looking at two women standing in front of them.

THE STRUGGLE OF A WIDOW AGAINST DOGMA  AND STIGMATIZATION

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Written by Thomas Kagwa

A group of women seated under a tent looking at two women standing in front of them.

Widows celebrating during the 7th Goat Foundation Cause giveback.

Joyce (not her real name) is a widow from Kilifi, Kenya. She supports a household of 12, both children and grandchildren, despite the limited economic opportunities in the Coast region that reflect the ongoing crises and prevalent gender inequality. Joyce is just one of the millions of widows around the world who struggle to claim their equal human rights after the loss of a husband; an event that can lead to enduring poverty for women and their families.

Although accurate information is limited, it has been estimated that there are some 285 million widows around the world, with over 115 million of them living in deep poverty. Data on women’s status are often not disaggregated by marital status, so at every level of gender statistics, from national to global, widows are not visible. Yet we know that many elderly widows face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, based on their gender, age, rural location, or disability. Others are still young when they lose their husbands, perhaps as a result of conflict or because they were married as children to a much older man. These women face a long lifetime of widowhood.

Along with the shock of losing a spouse, the situation for widows is often compounded by stigma and social isolation. In many countries, widows have been stripped of their rights to assets such as land, income, and property. Without access to social protection, they face destitution.

According to the World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law 2021 report, out of 173 countries, 90 per cent have at least one law limiting women’s economic participation, including constraints on their ability to inherit or own land. Repealing these discriminatory laws is not only ethical, but it is also a mandate of the Sustainable Development Goals. The first target of Goal 5 is to ”end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere” with a further target specifying the need to “undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and other natural resources, in accordance with national laws.” Action on these could impact the lives of millions of widows who are currently dependent on their husbands for their livelihoods.

Joyce was able to improve her situation, thanks to a project supported by The Goat Foundation for widows that trained her in financial skills, and included her among a group that received a donation of a pair of goats. Through this group,  saved enough money to start two micro-enterprises. With these new ventures—selling slippers and breeding goats—she has established her independence, growing her business, and supported her family.

The Goat Foundation is committed to working with communities around Kenya and Africa, and with like-minded civil societies on ensuring the human rights of widows. This includes providing widows with information on access to a fair share of their inheritance, land, and productive resources; pensions and social protection that are not based on marital status alone; decent work and equal pay; and education and training opportunities.

Widows must be empowered to support themselves and their families. This also means addressing social stigmas that create exclusion, and discriminatory or harmful practices, such as those in the DRC, where a widow can be required to undergo a period of isolation and imprisonment, purification ceremonies to “cut the link” with her deceased husband, and pressed to remarry.

 

This year’s UN High-Level Political Forum took place in July with a focus on “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world“. It provided an important opportunity to highlight and act on the connection between widowhood and poverty, as well as on the paucity of quality, sex-disaggregated data about widows and their lives.

The Sustainable Development Goals call on all of us to include those who are at risk of being left behind. Widows have inviolable rights that are not dependent on anyone else; they must be able to enjoy those rights. Let us work to ensure that, just like Joyce, all widows have the opportunity to build a new life after a personal loss.

 

A NEW DAWN IS NEEDED FOR KENYAN WIDOWS

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Kenyan widows deserve a change in policies that will protect them.

As members who are traditionally perceived as being a burden and inauspicious to the family, widows are often relegated to the status of the ‘unwanted insiders.

The ‘triple burden’ that they have to contend with, in the form of the stigma associated with widowhood, severe constraints on access to resources, and sexual vulnerability, makes them one of the most marginalized and vulnerable communities in our country.

This is a stark contrast to their male counterparts, who are not subject to similar socio-economic exclusion within households. The problems that confound widows in Kenya are therefore manifestations of the extreme gender disparities that are inherent in Africa where widowhood is persistently viewed as a social stigma.

The Kenyan constitution defines human dignity as a basic right. To be dignified implies having access to food, shelter, and clothing. It also means that one should be in a position to receive medical, legal, and education services.

Widows in Kenya lack more than half of what it defines to be dignified. In addition, they are tortured, beaten, robbed, shunned, and mocked by a society relentless in ostracizing them.

The new government, therefore, has an obligation to uphold the law and abide by the constitution. This means ensuring that widows access the basic amenities and services due to all Kenyans as alluded to in the constitution.

As The Goat Foundation, we have some proposals that we would like to front which we feel if implemented would guarantee widows some sense of dignity.

 

  1. Pass laws guaranteeing the widow’s right to ownership of land and property of their dead husband.
  2. Rigorous enforcement of this law and punishing of lawbreakers.
  3. Community sensitization and education about the rights of widows.
  4. Offer micro-finance solutions to widows so that they can start small businesses and diversify their income.
  5. A welfare program that caters to the education of widows’ families and access to free medical services.

We are aware that there are existing policies and laws protecting women, and legal guidelines against theft, which is what is perpetrated against widows. The present policies need to be broadened to include all age and income groups amongst the widows. Moreover, Widow Empowerment programs should be sensitive to the needs of different sociocultural groups and cater to minority communities.

If our recommendations are adopted, these measures have the capacity to transform the fortunes of every widow in the country. These are measures that should be applied by national and county governments.

Fortunately, we have female legislators at both levels of government. These upstanding ladies should introduce legislation that expands on my recommendations above. In addition, these leaders should be at the forefront of initiating a national conversation on widows’ plight and their rights in order to lift the social stigma against widowhood.

It is our ardent hope that the new leadership will accord extra time to the rights of the weak and innocent.

 

THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON WIDOWED HOUSEHOLDS

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Climate change is affecting widowed households

The Goat Foundation has traversed the far reaches of Kenyan communities visiting widows far and wide. These widows have no access to grain storage facilities or bank account savings. Being dependent on the produce generated on land, it follows that these widows depend on a steady and predictable climate to raise their meager crop and livestock holdings.

A saying goes, when it rains it pours, and climate change brings with it severe and unpredictable weather phenomena. If it isn’t flooding, it is a prolonged drought that completely devastates all vegetation. Crops wither and die, and animals lack food, and simply fall down and die. Poor widows end up with no means of earning a livelihood.

Elsewhere in the world, the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts threaten lives in these front-line communities, driving people from their homes and jeopardizing food sources and livelihoods. All these effects increase the likelihood of more conflict, hunger, and poverty.

The Goat Foundation collects data on the economic situation of widows around the country and we know that they rely on agriculture and natural resources to survive. For these widows, the effects of climate change — shifting weather, limited water sources, and increased competition for resources — are a real matter of life and death. Climate change has turned their lives into a desperate guessing game.

To earn a living, widows are forced to seek work as casual laborers, work as prostitutes or simply stay home and starve. Their children drop out of school as their mothers can no longer afford to pay school fees. Some of these children are then exploited as child workers, sold off in human trafficking, or into prostitution.

In 2010, the United Nations declared that “climate change is inextricably linked to poverty and hunger.” Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor living in rural areas count on natural resources such as forests, lakes, and oceans for their livelihoods, the organization noted. And climate change is playing havoc with those resources.

Here’s how climate change is impacting the families of widows and their children in Kenya:

  • ‌Prolonged droughts devastate food supplies and dry up water sources.
  • ‌Withered crops and starving animals destroy families’ livelihoods.
  • ‌Torrential rains, floods, and landslides flatten or sweep away their homes.
  • ‌Strife can occur within communities, as widows compete for available arable land.
  • ‌Widows’ families become separated, as their children relocate to search for work.

It is therefore a matter of paramount urgency for us who work in aid relief to advocate for the adoption of strict measures to mitigate the risk in global temperatures.

The lack of financial cushioning against emergencies is another factor that we must consider. If widows can be helped to save some income, they will be in a position to withstand the absence of direct agricultural produce.

Lastly, The Goat Foundation also emphasizes the need for diversifying means of agricultural production by practicing climate-smart agriculture so that if one practice, say crop planting, is devastated by floods, widows can rely on goats for food and as a source of income.

 

The United Nations observes 23 June as International Widows Day, to draw attention to the voices and experiences of widows and to galvanize the unique support that they need.

FOR OUR FOUNDATION IT IS ALL ABOUT GOATS

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Many have been nonprofit organizations and foundations founded in Kenya. Each of these organisations supports one cause or another while aiming to resolve issues afflicting social or economic well-being, progress or development among communities.

A Unique Solution

The Goat Foundation offers a unique solution to address and empower a group of people that in most societies go unnoticed. For The Goat Foundation, it is all about widows. The foundation noticed a gap in the services that catered for the welfare widows. In most cases, widows were ignored and received negligible support from the societies in which they lived in, therefore, The Goat Foundation embarked on a mission to support and empower them. “How?” you might ask. Through providing hope by giving goats.

The Goat Foundation donates a pair of goats to the family of widows. One female and one male with the hope that the goats will procreate and multiply and from two goats, the recipient will get multiple goats that can support her and her family.

While marking this year’s International Widows Day, according to The Goat Foundation’s Chief Project Executive Anne Musau, the foundation projects to give 20 million goats to 10 million widows across the country in the next ten years.

The Goat Foundation’s Chief Project Executive, Anne Musau with beneficiaries of the goat giveback

Did not go Unnoticed

This great act has not gone unnoticed as women in communities that received these donations expressed their gratitude and applauded The Goat Foundation saying the donations had empowered them and made their families economically secure.

Local community leaders and those from the larger political realm have not let the foundation’s goodwill go unnoticed with most praising the efforts geared towards empowering their communities. The leaders agree that the donation of the 2 goats benefits not just the widow but also those around them as the goats procreate giving the widows an opportunity to empower themselves and those around them by sharing the produce from the goats or some even go a step further to donate a kid to another widow like themselves.

Kitui Member of Parliament – Hon. Benson Makali with other leaders and one beneficiary of the goat giveback in Kitui.

One thing the widows, community leaders, and political ones can agree on is that the efforts by The Goat Foundation could not have come at a more opportune moment. The efforts have seen a once forgotten, very important group of people are empowered and can once again smile in the reassurance that their pockets are a little heavier because of a rather unique avenue of empowerment.

 HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

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During the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya, hundreds of lives were lost and thousands got displaced from their homes. The disputed elections were contested by leaders from the two of the largest communities in the country. 

Displaced by Conflict

As tension rose around the country and violence grew at an alarming rate, Joyce was advised by concerned friends to move back to her rural home in Murang’a, Kiambu County, from where it was assumed her security was guaranteed. 

Leaving her two children behind was one of the hardest decisions she ever made. She figured they were safer staying in one place, rather than traveling around in those unpredictable times.

While in Murang’a, her husband sadly passed on in a complicated story that requires a book to detail.

Donating a pair of goats to widows

Donating a pair of goats to widows

Joyce recalls how she was verbally attacked and kicked out of her husband’s funeral by her in-laws who thought she had visited their home to claim his property. In truth, she had braved danger and uncertainty to travel across the country to collect her children.

“What are you doing here? Why did you come? don’t you know your people killed my brother!!??” he fired off in a staccato of ruthless ire that made Joyce recoil from his presence in sheer horror.  

“You think we don’t know your agenda?” she had been told, “you will get nothing from my dead brother. His property belongs to us, his children are ours, leave before you follow him to the grave.” 

Scared out of her wits, her instinct of self-preservation had made her flee that home and city never to return.

In Machakos County, sad and confused, she settled at a nearby market center known as IIyuni where she worked as a cleaner at a local school and tended to a small farm around the house that she rented. 

Through her church, Joyce learnt about The Goat Foundation. Her pastor had presented her name for consideration as a likely recipient of a pair of goats.

Excited and intrigued Joyce attended the ceremony and was touched by the speeches exhorting generosity.

“Why should I act generously yet I am just a poor widow, shouldn’t I save all my money?” she wondered.

However, after deciding to adhere to the simple instructions of giving as spoken by donors at the meeting, she began offering herself to assist in church, buy meals for guests and even clothe a destitute child. She also donated the kids to her goats after they gave birth. 

New Beginnings

What followed was a series of miracles that bring tears to her eyes whenever she remembers. 

In a chance encounter with a family lawyer during a revival meeting, Joyce was advised of her rights concerning the custody of her children was concerned. Fellow church members got wind of her plight and got together to fundraise and hire a lawyer for her. 

Meanwhile, as her goats grew in number, she decided to try her hand at the restaurant business.

It is now three weeks since the custody hearing concerning her children began. Joyce believes good tidings await her. 

At the moment, she has to prepare for a meeting with an investor who wants to expand her hotel to a storied structure offering 3-star services. 

“So this is what giving is all about?…you give to receive!” she muses smiling.

Veronica Kanini speaking to the Goat Foundation

SHE DARES TO DREAM

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A Chance Meeting

During a donation exercise by The Goat Foundation in Kitui Central, Kitui County, I was drawn to a lady of about 30 years. She wore jeans, a gray hoodie, and open slacks that were rather too fashionable. 

I watched as she energetically marshaled her local group of widows through the set program. She embodied the enterprising hope envisioned by conveners of The goat Foundation. I made a mental note to request an interview with her and find out what her story was. 

Six months later I sat across the bubbly lady named Mwende whose story was quite an eye-opener. 

“I am a businesswoman, so I have trained myself to read a customer before they open their mouth. This intuition has guided me to succeed in business and once, it saved my life”  

The Goat Foundation

Some recipients turned their lives around and begun giving as cause capitalists

 

She pauses for effect to see if she has my attention and then begins her narrative. 

“Let me tell you my story. It began ten years ago when…”

Tragedy and Redemption

Mwende got married right after finishing high school. Her husband was from Mwingi, a town that was near her rural home. He worked as a clinical officer at the Level-5 hospital in that town. Musyoka (not his real name) had courted her through her secondary school and after finishing her ‘O’ level examinations, she promptly packed her bags and moved in with him.

For the next 8 years, they lived happily as a married couple though they never got to formalize their union. The one consternating factor in her marriage was her inability to conceive. Her husband’s relatives whispered loudly urging him to get another wife. Her in-laws had performed medical telepathy that somehow diagnosed her, and not Musyoka, her husband as the offending culprit in that childless union.

As animosity grew against her, her husband remained faithful and refused to entertain village ‘advisers’ who made regular trips to their homes to consult on ‘family matters.’

Tragedy struck in July 2018, she lost her husband in a road accident. He had traveled to the capital city for an interview with a large private hospital. The grief and sorrow that soon overwhelmed her were compounded by the fact that her in-laws wanted her out of her matrimonial home as soon as the burial ceremony was over. The house she was being thrown out of had been fully purchased by her husband before he died. 

Clinging to Hope

Determined not to lose everything in her life, Mwende vowed to stay put and never leave the house and property she shared with her husband. What followed was a series of orchestrated threats, beatings by unknown intruders and social media bullying and verbal assaults. It appeared like all of a sudden all members of her husband’s family had something rude to say to her. 

With no one to turn to, since she had run away from home to get married, Mwende decided to visit an old friend from school. On her way out she picked up a bottle of water that she had left standing on her table. On her way out she took a sip of the water, disliked it for tasting funny and threw the bottle away. That was the last thing she remembered. 

Waking up three weeks later in a hospital a doctor told her how lucky she had been. A good Samaritan had seen her collapse as she walked and got assistance to take her to the hospital. Mwende was quite sure who and why she had got poisoned. Her in-laws wanted the house and property left by her husband. 

After being discharged, she traveled back to her hometown in Kituyi carrying nothing but the clothes she wore on her back. 

The journey to Fulfillment

“How did you manage to survive, get an income and become the woman you are today?” I ask her.

“At first it wasn’t easy, I suffered from the side effects of those drugs. Later on, I did menial jobs for a small fee.”

Through her hard work and determination, Mwende scraped enough money to purchase a plot where she currently resided. 

“The Goat Foundation gave me hope for a prosperous future that I frankly believe in,” says Mwende with a smile. 

My two goats have been through two gestations. I have five goats. I gave one out to a needy friend. I hope that by the end of the year, I will add two more goats to my herd. If all goes according to plan, I will use these goats as collateral to get a loan and open a salon in town. 

Then she told me one of the most astonishing things I have heard in a long time. 

“My salon will offer free hair services to needy children. I will give one free service for every customer that I serve” she says confidently.

“How can you afford that?” I ask her, still stunned. 

“Don’t worry about that. The universe has plenty of abundances. You give to receive, and I believe blessings will keep coming my way as long as I keep giving.” 

She smiles brilliantly and rises to signal the end of our interview.

What a lady!