'We were waiting for our deaths' - Kenyan widows saved by tribal elders

23 June 2016 - 11:58 By Katy Migiro

Wekesa had been disinherited by her in-laws from Kenya's Luo community after rejecting their demands that she have sex with a stranger - a traditional cleansing rite for widows.She refused, knowing that she was HIV positive."The children wanted to cry but I said there was no need," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the western town of Ahero."If it had become time for us to die, that was the time and we were waiting for our deaths."Kenyan law grants widows the right to live on their late husbands' property until they die, but poor women are often evicted by land-hungry relatives, who use culture to justify their actions.Harmful cleansing rituals, such as having sex with a stranger and cleaning the dead husband's corpse then drinking the water used to wash the body, have fuelled the spread of diseases like HIV and Ebola in Africa, according to the Loomba Foundation which campaigns for widows' rights.Rather than exacerbating family tensions through the courts, which are often expensive and slow, campaigners are working with traditional elders to protect widows.The Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN) has trained almost 40 elders in western Kenya, who have resolved community disputes since pre-colonial times, to mediate in widows' inheritance disputes.The initiative has resettled almost 400 widows on their late husbands' land since 2009."People are misinterpreting culture. We want to take it back to what it used to be," said programme manager Onyango Ondeng ahead of International Widows' Day on Thursday.Other rights groups, working with Kenya's Meru and Kalenjin communities in the highlands north of Nairobi, have developed similar projects."Inheritance does not have to be sexual," said Ondeng. "We brought in the elders (and) they have explained to the community that inheritance encompasses taking care of his brother's wife economically and letting her access land."The elders have encouraged families to adopt safer rituals, such as getting a male relative to hang his coat in the widow's home to symbolise her inheritance by the family.Wekesa's in-laws have now accepted her and she lives peacefully near Lake Victoria, rearing chickens and ducks."We are on very good terms," she said. "When there is a problem, they come to me for advice." - Thomson Reuters ..

There’s never been a more important time to support independent media.

From World War 1 to present-day cosmopolitan South Africa and beyond, the Sunday Times has been a pillar in covering the stories that matter to you.

For just R80 you can become a premium member (digital access) and support a publication that has played an important political and social role in South Africa for over a century of Sundays. You can cancel anytime.

Already subscribed? Sign in below.



Questions or problems? Email helpdesk@timeslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00.