By Patrick Obeng, GNA
Accra, June 24, GNA - Mrs Cynthia Morrison, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, has urged society to support widows to enable them to lead decent lives.
She said society must treat widows fairly and with respect since anyone could fall into that state.
Mrs Morrison made the call at this year’s National Widows Alliance Conference in Accra.
The conference organized annually by the Mama Zimbi Foundation, was to commemorate the International Widows Day, which falls on every June 23, and was on the theme ‘Empowering Widows for a Brighter Future’’.
It was aimed at drawing attention to the voices and experiences of widows and to galvanize support for them.
Mrs Morrison, who is also the Member of Parliament for Gomoa West, said in many countries with traditional societies, women find themselves left in poverty when their husbands die.
She said they are denied inheritance rights to the land and sometimes evicted from their homes or forced into unwanted marriages and traumatising widowhood rituals.
The Gender Minister encouraged widows to have faith in the Lord despite all the agony they went through and assured that the Ministry would collaborate with the foundation to empower them for a better future.
Madam Akumaa Mama Zimbi, the founder of the foundation, said her foundation would do everything possible to ensure their welfare and appealed to Non-Governmental Organizations and benevolent societies to support the foundation.
Most of the participants urged government to ensure the rights of widows, as enshrined in International Law, including the Convention of on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The UN in 2010 launched the Day to raise awareness of the Violation of human Rights that widows suffer in many countries following the death of their husbands.
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