The date was 23 June 1954, when Lord Raj Loomba’s father Jagiri Lal Loomba, succumbed to the still widespread scourge of tuberculosis. On the very day of his father’s death, his grandmother ordered the young widow to remove her bangles, jewellery and bindi – the sign of a married woman in India – and henceforth to wear only white clothes. Years later, when Raj married Veena Chaudhry, he was enraged when the priest asked his mother to sit away from the altar lest, as a widow, she brought bad luck to the young couple. In 1997, five years after Raj Loomba’s mother passed away, Raj and his wife Veena established the Shrimati Pushpa Wati Loomba Trust – as The Loomba Foundation was initially known in the UK – to care for widows and their children, and to change the culture that discriminates against them. When the charity was officially launched in London, on 25 March 1998, the charity was launched in the presence of British Prime Minister, Tony Blair with his wife, Cherie Blair QC; she became the Foundation’s first Patron – and, from 2004, its President.
Launched by The Loomba Foundation in 2005, International Widows Day is a United Nations (UN) ratified day of action to address the poverty and injustice faced by millions of widows and their dependents in several countries of the world. As The Loomba Foundation marked the 10th anniversary of International Widows Day 2021, in his opening address, Lord Karan Bilimoria said, “Women currently make up 50% of the UK population, but only 17% of business owners. One of the big barriers is low self-confidence. If that is for women, generally, just imagine, for widows around the world, that the low confidence that they experienced because of what they are subjected to, which is completely unacceptable.” And the date of the 23rd is significant as it was on this day Lord Loomba’s mother became a widow in 1954.
Reading out the UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message, in one of the excerpts, Lord Loomba said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has both increased the number of widows globally and exacerbated many of the challenges they face, including access to bank accounts and pensions. As governments provide economic and social support in response to the pandemic, they must consider the world’s 250 million widows. Even before the pandemic hit, nearly one in ten widows lived in extreme poverty.”
Lord Loomba further explained, “What is becoming clear is that the pandemic is also having an effect on mental health. And among the most vulnerable groups affected by this are widows. Widows are one of the most overlooked and marginalised groups in the world. They are often left dealing with the prospect of handling finances, children's upbringing and management or on their own, which makes them especially vulnerable in times of crisis.
“No single group is more adversely affected by the pandemic, than widows, we need similar enlightened leadership to help them. This is why today we call on the British government to establish a Covid-19 widows support group to look at the special circumstances of women who have lost their husbands to the pandemic and are left without adequate means to fend for their families and to provide them with the financial support and practical help they need to overcome their bereavement grief.”
Speaking to Asian Voice, Lord Loomba shared what should not be done in order to help widows. He said, “Widows should not be stigmatised or marginalised by rituals. In some countries, widows are forced to marry the brother of the deceased husband. In old age, it was felt that he would marry and take care of the children, but sometimes they did not accept the wife because in many cases they were HIV positive.”
Cherie Blair, President, The Loomba Foundation who has been a big supporter of The Loomba Foundation and has been instrumental in getting the UN recognition for IWD together with Lord Loomba. She said, “I have seen how awareness of the plight of widows and its wider impact has grown among governments and international organizations and for over 1000s of lives have been transformed by The Loomba Foundation's programmes over the past two decades.
“In 2010, the hard work bore fruit thanks to help of the UN representatives from many countries, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted International Widows Day as an official annual day of action. And on the 23rd of June 2011, I attended the first International Widows Day conference under the UN in New York, chaired by the wife of the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.”
Speaking at the conference, Abhi Naha, Chief Commercial Officer, Cambridge Wireless said we are going to work together with The Loomba Foundation to help widows around the world. Naha’s mother has been a widow for the last 15 years, and he supported the Loomba Foundation by organising the webinar free of charge, which was entirely managed by his colleague, Rachel Kerr.
Harjiv Singh, Trustee, The Loomba Foundation moderated the conference by welcoming success stories and data from various countries where the foundation has transformed lives. Some of the speakers were widows and that led them to campaign for more women like themselves.
Impact around the world
India
Shoury Reddy, Executive Director Bala Vikasa shared that 10,000 widows gathered at a big stadium in Hyderabad, from two different states where priests from Hinduism, Islam and Christianity where legislators urged people to stop attaching the discrimination of widows to religion.
Mentioning a classic example, he also added, “We challenged the society when Indira Gandhi, our Prime Minister, was a widow. She was a widow for 18 years. And she was really the country and she was breaking a coconut at multi-billion dollar worth project integration. When Indira Gandhi being a widow can break the coconut at a big function, why not a widow at the village?”
Reddy spoke about how the governments are giving like 2000 rupees per month, which is big money for the widows and lobbyists are trying to bring forth the SC-ST Atrocities Act in the light of which, no one should dare to stigmatise a widow.
United States
Carolyn Moor, President, Founder and Development Director of Modern Widows Club, who is also a widow, said that IWD means that we are listening to widows, and more importantly, we're believing them. Moor mentioned that widows now have access to reading material in their native language and MWC is trying to ask President Biden and VP Harris, 11 important widows, and widowers recognitions.
Kenya
Speaking about the Covid-19 crisis, Rosaline Orva, Founder/Director of Rona Foundation (who is a widow herself) told the audiences that the elderly widows who had already survived a pandemic, HIV and AIDS are now dying because of Covid-19 without knowing when the vaccine will reach them. She said, “So I'm coming with a heavy heart.”
“What can be done globally, global partners that are here is to use their social capital to endorse and support grassroots organization in Rwanda, in Tanzania. In that way, those under-resourced under-recognized grassroots organisations can sustain the much-needed work,” Orva said.
Uganda
Uganda an institution that has received the generous support of The Loomba Foundation. Charles Ocici, Executive Director, Enterprise Uganda said, “We provide business entrepreneurship and mindset training for widows, for women for young people, but also through The Loomba foundation we began to focus deeply on delivering entrepreneurship solution to widows.”
Tanzania
Rose Sarwatt, Executive Director, Tanzania Widows Association, TAWIA shared that it was through The Loomba Foundation that she came to know about IWD and ended up helping over a million women, starting with 3000 widows. Today, the government has given widows loans and affordable health insurance packages. It has also implemented free education from primary to secondary education to children of widows.
Nigeria
Dr Eleanor Nwadinobi, President, Widows Development Organization mentioned that child marriages are on the rise during Covid-19, as an effect of which, the number of child widows is also rising. Quoting a source, the doctor said, “There are 4 million more girls at risk of child marriage. And in fact, your NFP estimates that the disruptions to child marriage prevention programs due to the pandemic could potentially result in an additional 13 million more child marriages by 2030.”
Nepal
Lily Thapa, Founder for Human Rights said that about 9000 people have died of Covid and 4000-5000 women are widows whose husbands were breadwinners. Thapa, who is also a widow, mentioned that Nepal does not have access to healthcare and rehabilitation infrastructure.
Need for a Global Fund for Covid widows
What can governments do to support and help widows financially and to support Covid widows through their bereavement and their grief or when they become widows? Lord Loomba said, “The answer is very simple. I think the pandemic has been worldwide, and it's a big problem, and no one country can solve it. Therefore, I believe that the G20 countries should get together. And as the G7 has decided to supply a billion doses and, and help girls for education, they should set up a Global Fund for Covid widows. Additionally, I think the national governments should also play their part by setting up National Commission for Widows like they have a National Commission for Women.”
Reports suggest that there are over 3mn people who have died due to Covid and more men have died than women, therefore the number of Covid widows is well over a millionn. It is imperative to remember that according to a research study by The Loomba Foundation in 2015, it was noted that there were approximately 258 mn widows that already existed in the world, which is also a part of the World Widow Report at the UN.
What happens post-pandemic?
Cherie Blair said, “I think Raj has ideas, as always is a fantastic one, he always comes up with big ideas and somehow manages to pull them off. I think the most important thing that we all need to do is to ensure that we empower women and particularly the Covid widows, in this case, to enable them to find the right solutions to make their and their children's lives better. It's not an issue that's confined to one religion or one region, it is actually a global phenomenon that means global solutions.”
Is this a time where we might have an opportunity to use the crisis to think about some of these issues? Peter Rajsingh, Trustee, The Loomba Foundation said, “I think Lord Loomba and Cherie somewhat downplayed just how difficult it was. I mean, they engaged in a lot of effort, but there was opposition. And it's almost as if the spirit of Pushpa Loomba was kind of helping us bring this about because it was touch and go until we finally got the vote and the announcement from the United Nations. And I would also venture to say, I know from firsthand experience, that it would be impossible to get this today.
“A Covid fund would certainly be something significant. There's a lot of wind in the sails of ESG initiatives. So we could certainly try to lobby the corporate sector to get involved because issues of social justice and are very much at the forefront of all different constituencies. At the same time, as we sit here there are unspeakable atrocities taking place in the world, genocides that are actually creating new cohorts of widows as we speak.”
In her vote of thanks, Shamin Lalji, Trustee, The Loomba Foundation, UK said, “I have been a trustee of The Loomba Foundation for over 20 years, and have been supporting the work of the foundation to battle the impact of unfair discrimination faced by widows. The foundation has been educating children of poor widows and empowering the widows to work and to become financially independent.”
The conference also marked the screening of a special song created on IWD titled “Justice for widows” by the famous Bollywood singer and musician Bappi Lahiri, the lyrics of which have been penned by Seema Jaya Sharma.
Sharing his sentiment on this global conference, CB Patel, Editor and Publisher ABPL Group, said, “Founded by Lord Loomba CBE in 1997, The Loomba Foundation is a beacon of hope which promotes the fundamental freedoms and human rights for widows and their children all over the world. It is only befitting that The Loomba Foundation organised a global conference to commemorate the 10th anniversary of International Widows Day.
“The findings of the World Widows Report, authored by The Loomba Foundation, are a grim reminder of the discrimination and injustice faced by widows and their dependants and a wakeup call for governments and societies including developed nations to act with a sense of urgency. Widows in western and developed countries have also been affected by cutbacks in social welfare and increased insecurity. This is a deep-seated universal social malady and requires a global effort.
“The Covid pandemic has further exacerbated the plight of widows and as Lord Loomba rightly points out no single group is more adversely affected by the pandemic than widows who have lost the breadwinner in the family.
“I truly believe that there is a dire need for governments across the globe to set up Support Groups to help the Covid widows financially and to support them to overcome their mental and bereavement grief.”
