The space that my children and I have for grieving is secured by privilege - we live in a peaceful, wealthy western democracy with welfare support and employment opportunities. The slow pace of life I described in my previous post which is conducive to healing and hopefulness will be unknown to most widows around the world. Women's rights are often widow's rights. Widows in many countries constitute one of the poorest, and most marginalised groups of people; when they lose their husbands, they lose their humanity. Hannah Arendt said that the worst thing that could happen to a person was if they became merely human - bare life without a place in society or respected identity. Many widows belong nowhere - they are simply human life. They are blamed for the death of their husbands, and consequently they can be stripped of their property, ousted from employment, rejected and abused. Needless to say, their human rights count for nothing because they have been deprived of the fully human status which would support their claims.
WRI (widow's rights international) is an NGO which says alot more about this - they provide case studies and money for the documentation of human rights abuses. The respecting of women's rights is closely linked to the implementation of socio-economic rights (of education, welfare and work), and needs to be seen in a context of sensitive economic and social development which includes initiative such as micro-financing (see links below).
http://www.widowsrights.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6047364.stm (micro-financing)
http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/
Micro-financing is controversial; some commentators refute that it is effective in helping the poorest. An alternative is to think about global redistributive justice (from the wealthy to the poor across the globe, not simply within the nation state). The difficulty here is that we have no sense of cosmopolitan citizenship which would legitimise (and give moral force to) the idea of helping distant strangers.
WRI (widow's rights international) is an NGO which says alot more about this - they provide case studies and money for the documentation of human rights abuses. The respecting of women's rights is closely linked to the implementation of socio-economic rights (of education, welfare and work), and needs to be seen in a context of sensitive economic and social development which includes initiative such as micro-financing (see links below).
http://www.widowsrights.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6047364.stm (micro-financing)
http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/
Micro-financing is controversial; some commentators refute that it is effective in helping the poorest. An alternative is to think about global redistributive justice (from the wealthy to the poor across the globe, not simply within the nation state). The difficulty here is that we have no sense of cosmopolitan citizenship which would legitimise (and give moral force to) the idea of helping distant strangers.
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