Cynthia Gorney Discussed Widowhood Project at University of Texas at Austin

Award-winning journalist Cynthia Gorney discussed her Pulitzer Center-supported National Geographic project, "For Widows, Life After Loss" at the University of Texas at Austin's Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice on March 21, 2017.

Worldwide, there are about 259 million widows. Nearly half live in poverty. Even where laws protect their rights, widows are sometimes mistreated.

In Uganda, as in many other parts of the world, widowhood is a sentence to a life of misery. After her husband died, Betty Nanozi was robbed of everything she owned, twice. Her cow was beaten to death. Her land was forcefully taken from her.

Gorney was joined by Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer. They spoke about both the field research behind her project—in India and Bosnia as well as Uganda—and how that reflects patterns of discrimination that are all too common across the globe.