By Raj Loomba, Founder and Chairman Trustee of the Loomba Trust
I grew up the son of a widow and witnessed first-hand the suffering my mother endured. When my father passed away, my grandmother ordered my mother to remove her jewellery, including her bindi, and never to wear brightly-coloured clothes again. I was too young to comprehend these restrictions at that time, however, at my wedding the Hindu priest who was conducting the ceremony asked my mother to move away from the wedding altar because as a widow, she could bring bad luck to the newly-wed couple.
This incident left a huge mark on me. How could a mother who gave birth to me, who educated me and always wished me good luck, ever bring me bad luck? This was the reason I was inspired to set up a charity, the Loomba Trust, for widows.
Over the years, we have raised awareness of the plight of widowhood worldwide. We are currently educating more than 3,000 children of poor widows in India. As part of our global work, the Loomba Trust works to alleviate the plight of poor widows world-wide. Currently we operate in 12 countries to support widows who are victims of poverty, disease, wars, genocide, rape and social injustice.
I established the Loomba Trust in 1997 in the United Kingdom together with my wife, Veena Loomba, primarily to raise awareness of the plight of widows and their children who are suffering due to poverty, illiteracy, diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, conflict and social injustice. The charity is named after my late mother Shrimati Pushpa Wati Loomba, who became a widow in Punjab, India in 1954. She was fortunate that my father, who was a successful businessman, left her ample financial resources. Although my mother had never gone to school herself, she had a vision to educate all seven of her young children. My two sisters graduated from Punjab University at a time when girls did not even go to school. I was educated in the United States thanks to my mother.
The plight of poor widows and their children is a serious one, yet it has remained unnoticed and unaddressed to date. The problems faced by a woman after the loss of her husband are that she is left with no support in a society where the presence of a husband is essential for her security. These widows and their children remain vulnerable to all forms of exploitation—even through their own family members. Many of these cruelties and biases are ordained by religious belief and social practice. In many developing countries, when a women loses her husband she loses her place in society. She is regarded by her marital family and society in general as “inauspicious”. She is blamed for her husband’s death and is considered a burden. They begin to ostracize her.
The growing importance of the Trust’s wide-reaching work was underscored by the reception it received from Rwandan Government officials. President Paul Kagame hosted a gala dinner to officially launch the Loomba Trust in his country last year on the eve of the official week of mourning for the 1994 genocide, when close to 1 million innocent victims, half of whom were male heads of households, were slaughtered.
The plight of widows is an important hidden issue in many countries and has grown significantly due to poverty, disease and social injustice. Often they are the poorest of the poor, invisible, forgotten and unheard. The combination of losing the breadwinner of the family and the associated social stigma has devastating effects on dependent children. We believe providing support for widows and their children is one of the most important and effective ways of fighting global poverty and injustice, and a key factor in enabling the international community to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
The Loomba Trust, declared 23 June as International Widows Day. Launched in 2005 at the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, it provides a day for global focus and effective global action, when recognized by the United Nations, International Widows Day will help achieve at least five of the Millennium Development Goals.
Four years ago, a major International Widows Conference was held at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London to raise international awareness and provide individuals, corporations, governments and non-governmental organizations with a platform to address issues affecting widowhood, such as poverty and deprivation, social stigma, legal discrimination, and the impact of HIV/AIDS. The Prince of Wales was Patron-in-Chief of the Conference, which was chaired by the Loomba Trust’s President, Cherie Blair, and attended by the Commonwealth Secretary-General and many other dignitaries from all over the world, including Yoko Ono, widow of Beatles legend John Lennon. Hillary Clinton made a presentation at the conference by videolink.
In 2008, a poll commissioned by Chatham House, together with the Loomba Trust, was carried out in 17 countries by World Public Opinion. It confirmed the widespread perception that widows and divorced women are treated worse than other women. “Discrimination against widows and divorced women appears to be a phenomenon of many countries, not just some traditional cultures,” says Steven Kull, director of World Public Opinion. “People in most countries, including developed ones, ¬recognize there is at least some discrimination”, adding that “while there have been no large-scale studies quantifying the scope of discrimination against widows and divorced women, the thousands of respondents in the poll report that the problem is quite widespread.”
We call upon the United Nations to recognize International Widows Day.
