In many traditional communities of developing countries (especially in Africa), widowhood rites practices is carried out either on the widow, (a woman who has lost her husband) to prove the innocence of a woman whose husband dies at an early age. Even in Africa not all communities practice widowhood rite but the communities that practices it subject the widow to all kind of demeaning and non-human practice such as shaving of the woman’s hair, compelling her to drink the water used to wash the corpse of her husband proving her innocence, depriving her of participating in family decision, ensuring she weeps at night and day, sleeping in same room with her husband corpse
and bathing in a river for spiritual cleansing after which her cloth will be burnt. Widowhood represents a “social death” for women. It is not merely that they have lost their husband, the main breadwinner and supporter of their children, but widowhood robs them of their status and confines them to the very margins of society where they suffer the most extreme forms of discrimination and stigma.

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