Yinka Badejo

The Moremi Hall of the University of Lagos hosted several top stars on Friday when the Felix King Foundation again sought emancipation for widows.

Rapper M. I. Abaga, hip hop and highlife singer, Harrysong and comedian Woli Arole were among the artistes who joined the founder of the foundation, Felix King, to mark the International Widows Day.

Apart from performing at the event, the stars also spoke against the oppression of widows and signed a declaration inspired by King, urging ‘Zero Maltreatment Day’  for widows.

The United Nations had made “Developing resources and policies to empower widows” as the theme.

It did so, bearing in mind that data on women’s status “are often not disaggregated by marital status, so at every level of gender statistics, from national to global, widows are not visible. Yet we know that many elderly widows face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, based on their gender, age, rural location or disability. Others are still young when they lose their husbands, perhaps as a result of conflict or because they were married as children to a much older man. These women face a long lifetime of widowhood.”

King noted that the foundation took a step forward because of the environment that widows lived in Africa, which he described as being negatively peculiar.

He said, “The ultimate goal of the day is to develop resources and policy to empower widows and allow them have access to education, work, healthcare and lives free of violence and abuse, while enabling them to create a life for themselves and their children following the death of their husband and ending a cycle of poverty and abuse.”

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