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Are You Proud to Be a Woman?Are You Proud to Be a Woman?
Vanguard
Folake Aina
COLUMN
13 October 2007
As much as I am so proud that I am a woman, and I am so sure that every woman reading this article is proud to be a woman. I bet you will agree with me that so many things happen all over the world to women are just totally unimaginable and unfair. Sometimes you hear some stories of things that happen to certain women, especially widows and you imagine that it could only happen in the movies, but believe me, most of these stories are for real.
A woman has just lost her husband.. who has been her friend, brother, father and everything for so many years. She is traumatized. She is still in shock. She cannot even believe that he is gone. She is having a nervous break down. She is simply going crazy. The thought going through her head, no-one can imagine. How would she go on alone. How would she cope. Most especially if the man was the provider.
Where does she begin? All this is going through her mind, and all of a sudden, members of her husbands family come up with all forms of trouble. They want everything their brother owned, they strip her of everything she worked for with her husband. Believe me, this is the ugliest side of madness that I have ever seen but it happens everyday. I have tried to figure it out, but I can't comprehend it. How two young people get married, and they had nothing to start with at the time. They grow together, work together, build together, and money and property begin to build up.
Then the man dies, and his family do not put the wife and kids into consideration. Family just takes over. I don't understand it. The members of the man's family begin property grabbing. This is so rampant, you just cannot imagine. There are so many cases of forced evictions, where the woman is sent out of her matrimonial home with her children. It happens!!!
What women and widows in Nigeria go through is Childs play compared to what some women in some other parts of the world go through. There is this country I was reading about. This society still does a terrible job treating women, particularly widows. The men are hired by multi national companies and work on breakthrough technologies that impact lives of people worldwide. They earn so much money, but the women are the ones who have to pay dowry over the men that they want to marry. Not only that, the men are controlled by their parents and will do to the woman anything that his parents asks him to do. Talk about being married a pet or a puppet. That is what it is in this society. Not only do their parents pick the woman that they are going to marry, they also make unreasonable dowry demands on the woman..
It is also no secret in this society that countless women are tortured for failing to bring sufficient dowry (not just at the time of wedding but for any weddings, funerals, and festivals in the future) - in some cases, these women are simply murdered by the husband and/or his family.
In this society, the story of widows is even worse. It is regarded as a curse on the woman. A husband must not die on his wife. For any man to die in any marriage is regarded as a taboo. Within moments of the last breath of her husband, these women are treated worse than animals, and forced to work like slaves the rest of their lives tending to others in the family. Some are pushed out of that city altogether and forced to live far away from civilization. They are treated as outcasts . They cannot be invited to weddings or any festive occasions, many women would not let their children near them (for the fear of a curse). As for remarrying, forget it.
All women must move out of their comfort zone and challenge every form of abuse of widows. It is so sad that there is generally lack of specific concern and recognition of the abuse of widows. Every woman must do something. At any time, if there is a woman who has just lost her husband anywhere around you, stand up and support her. We must at anytime be able to mobilize all women to stand behind women who have just lost their husbands. And make sure that no one comes from the blues to claim what is rightfully hers.
Many of us in ignorance have directly or indirectly been involved in the abuse or maltreatment of widows. Now we know better. The number one rule for every woman is that you must not be caught dead in support of anything that takes advantage of the widow. At least we start from there. If in every family no-one gets the support of any woman to cheat a widow, we would get somewhere. Believe it or not, women, when they stick together to do anything always get it done. We cannot just all sit back and tell stories and watch this madness go on. It is time to say "Enough is enough" You might think it is not your business today, what if it happens to you tomorrow (God forbid) there definitely will be no-one to fight for you. Just be your sisters keeper.
Copyright © 2007 Vanguard
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