Lawyers Forum decry negative widowhood practices

A group, under the aegis of Aku Diewa Lawyers’ Forum, ADLAF, has condemned some widowhood practices in Nigeria, especially in the South Eastern states that deny widows of equitable share of their husband’s inheritance.
The association, comprising lawyers of Aku origin, in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State, described such practices where a widow is forced to sleep with a fetish high priest to separate the spirit of the dead husband from the wife in this modern time as abominable.

The forum working in conjunction with Hon. Princess Stella Ngwu representing Igbo-Etiti/Uzo-Uwani Federal constituency at the House of Representatives, made their views known in a paper entitled, ‘Widowhood Rights, Challenges and Remedies Under the Law.’

The group through Mrs. Carolyn Ugwu, in the paper, pointed out such negative widowhood practices to include “shaving of a widow’s head, eyebrow and pubic hair when her husband dies; forcing a widow to sit on a cold, bare floor during mourning period, forcing a widow to wear mourning clothes for specific periods up to a year in white or black apparels,” among others.