EMPOWERMENT OF WIDOWS :RECOMMENDATIONS to United Nations Member States

1. ENABLE ACCESS TO JUSTICE – by all available ways and means. 

2. CRIMINALIZE all actions that deprive widows of all ages of their rights, and perpetrate or condone violence against them, whether by State or Non-State actors including family and community members. 

3. CRIMINALIZE rites of stigmatization, including but not limited to life-threatening and degrading mourning and burial rites, witchcraft or cause of death accusations, widowinheritance, and levirate practices. 

4. REFORM ALL LAWS to facilitate economic empowerment opportunities for widows including women’s right to own land, inherit, and receive access to economic opportunity including education, skills training, credit, capital, and cooperative business models. 

5. APPOINT a Special Rapporteur to address widowhood in context of conflict. 

6. ESTABLISH a Special Desk at UN Women to address the cross cutting inter sectorial issues of widowhood across the globe. 

7. SUPPORT widows to establish their own organizations so their collective voice can be heard to articulate their needs and describe their roles 

8. COMMISSION COMPREHENSIVE STATISTICAL REVIEWS of Widowhood in each country in order to fill the quantitative and qualitative information gap. 

9. ENSURE that widows are not "left behind" but their status directly addressed in strategies to achieve the post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals since Widowhood is a root cause of poverty across the generations. 

Widowhood-CSW60-Final-Report.pdf