In the closing years of the 20th century, widows were absent fromthe discourse about humanitarian issues. Anecdotally, we knew of suffering that had – through the ages – been inflicted on widows through practices such as Sati, the ritual self-immolation on the husband’s funeral pyre, but we thought these horrors belonged to a distant past. We knew there were millions of poor widows inIndia and elsewhere, but we thought of that as a poverty issue,not specifically connected to their status as widows.
From scratch the surface
There are still millions of widows and dependents living in abject poverty, suffering humiliating and degrading treatment. In numbers affected, the improved awareness has barely begun to scratch the surface. But more widows have come out of the shadows. There are more organisations – governmental as well as humanitarian and voluntary – to turn to. There are more routes to seek redress, even if it is still hard for many to find them. There are more programmes to help ensure dependent children get to school, and to help widows become economically independent..
This is the achievement of the Loomba Foundation in the quarter century since it was founded: to shine a light where previously there were only shadows, to bring together evidence and stimulate research on a global scale, to galvanise governments and the international community to recognise the importance of this issue and prioritise it in humanitarian policy development.
