Widow Care

There are an estimated 258.5 million widows worldwide with a total of 584.6 million children between them. There was nearly a ten percent increase in widows from 2010 to 2015, and one in every seven widows worldwide are in severe poverty.¹ In Afghanistan and Ukraine, one in every five women is widowed.² However, India is the nation with the highest population of widows.³ Many widows in developing nations experience isolation, discrimination, abuse and persecution from their community and family members, particularly in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.⁴ According to the World Bank, many nations — 90 percent of 176 — have laws in place that limit a woman’s ability to own land, participate in a trade or otherwise achieve economic freedom.⁵