In some parts of the world, a husband's death brings his widow not only personal grief but also a new life of extraordinary hardship, poverty, powerlessness, and abuse.
In the Balkans, widows whose husbands were killed a quarter century ago, in mass executions now called crimes of war, have spent decades simply fighting for remains to be identified, from among millions of deliberately-scattered bones—so that there might be something inside a coffin to bury. In India, thousands of impoverished widows live in concentrated communities of exile, sent away by families that fear or revile a woman who outlives her own husband. In Africa, newly-widowed women can be stripped of their homes, forced to drink the water in which their dead husbands were cleansed, or handed over like inheritance chattel to their own brothers-in-law.
Four years after the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon declared that "millions of widows in our world face persistant abuse, discrimination, disinheritance and destitution," a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting project, in partnership with National Geographic Magazine, is documenting unusual widows' communities on three continents.
The widows themselves are their own eloquent biographers—as are the local social workers, lawyers and charity organizations now helping these women find a stronger voice and perhaps a more joyful life.
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Pulitzer Center Update
Amy Toensing Visited Guilford College to Present 'A World of Widows'
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April 19, 2017 -
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Pulitzer Center Update
National Geographic Your Shot 'Strong Women' Finalists Selected
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April 18, 2017 -
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Pulitzer Center Update
NatGeo Your Shot 'Strong Women' Photographs on @PulitzerCenter Instagram This Week
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April 17, 2017 -
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Pulitzer Center Update
Cynthia Gorney Discussed Widowhood Project at University of Texas at Austin
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March 30, 2017 -
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Pulitzer Center Update
Last Week to Submit Photos of Strong Women to NatGeo Your Shot
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March 20, 2017 -
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Pulitzer Center Update
Photographers Submit Photos of Strong Women From Around the World
The Pulitzer Center partnership with Your Shot— National Geographic’s photo community made up of...
March 13, 2017