Negative aspects of widowhood rites

Story: Salome Donkor
Widowhood practices vary among various ethnic groups in the country, some impacting negatively on widows and orphans. Among some ethnic groups, widows are forced to strip naked in public and undergo other unpleasant exercises that abuse their right to dignity.
In a report on violence against women in Ghana, the United Nations (UN) Division for the Advancement of Women indicated that widowhood rites included confining the widow to a room, shaving her head, having her wear a rope around her neck and making her go through a ritual bath.
The Widows and Orphans Ministry (WOM), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) founded in 1993 and based in Bolgatanga, whose mission is to fight for the interest of widows and orphans conducted research on inheritance in the Upper East Region and found that widowhood rites are considered dehumanising by many widows.
The organisation identified the following widowhood rites that include stripping a widow naked and having her wear only shea tree leaves; having the widow bathe naked in public; forcing the widow to marry a man from her late husband's family; having the widow feed the ritualist during and after the funeral; and isolating the widow and exposing her to black ants.
Compelling women to observe some of these cultural rites like compelling the widow to marry a man from her late husband's family, seem to increase their susceptibility to HIV transmission and endanger their lives.
Reports from the Upper West Region indicate that this practice nicknamed “Bye Election”, is prevalent in the area.
When reached on phone by this reporter to find more about the customary rite, the Upper West Regional Director of the Department of Women of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, Mrs Catherine Bob-Milliar, said widowhood inheritance that involved the remarriage of a widow to an elder brother of her late husband, was prevalent in parts of the region.
Explaining how the system operates, she said when a man died, the widow had to go through the traditional rite or pay the dowry, which sometimes involved four cows, to the relatives of her deceased husband and move out of her late husband’s compound, adding that the relatives of the deceased tended to be very unsympathetic to a widow who has no child with her late husband and refuses to perform the rite.
She said although the practice had some significance some years back, since it was seen as providing the widow and her children with some form of social security, it now needed a second look, considering the risk involved in the possible spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV and AIDS.
Touching on other negative aspects of the practice, she said it sometimes resulted in domestic feud, considering the fact that the senior wife of the man, who is re-marrying a new wife, gets peeved.
According to Mrs Bob-Milliar, her department registered 7,000 widows, comprising young ones, as of 2002, and pointed out that the surprising thing is that these days most young girls who are widows, are not interested in the widowhood inheritance.
She said since the dowry was very high, particularly in Lawra, coupled with the high illiteracy rate among women, compared to men, women who found themselves in that condition had no option but to go through the practice.
She, however said, a few enlightened ones, who were economically empowered, preferred to refund the dowry to the family of the deceased to remarrying an elder brother of her deceased husband.
She said the Department of Women had intensified sensitisation programmes through dialogue with chiefs, opinion leaders and women leaders to enlighten them on the need to revise the customary rite in order to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and safeguard the health of the people.
When asked whether the affected women were not aware of PNDC Law 111 that protected a widow or widower, whose spouse died Intestate, Mrs Bob-Milliar said because of the payment of high dowry by husbands, women were seen as the ‘property’ of their husbands, adding that although widowhood rites were prohibited under Ghana's penal code many widows were not aware of this legislation.