(Harare) – Widows in Zimbabwe are routinely evicted from their homes and land, and their property is stolen by in-laws when their husbands die, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government of Zimbabwe should urgently take steps to protect widows from this practice.
The 53-page report, “‘You Will Get Nothing,’ Violations of Property and Inheritance Rights of Widows in Zimbabwe,” found that in-laws often tell women shortly after the deaths of their husbands that the relatives intend to take over the homes and lands or other property where the husband and wife had lived for decades. One widow quoted her brother-in-law’s words to her after her husband’s funeral, in front of the family that had gathered: “He said in my face, ‘You are rubbish and you will get nothing. I am taking everything.’”
“The impact of property grabbing on widows is devastating,” said Bethany Brown, a researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Women whose property was taken from them spoke of homelessness, destitution, and loss of livelihoods.”
Read a text description of this video
Widows of brothers
They [our in-laws] took over large portions of our land. Every day they threaten us, telling us that as widows we have no right to the land and that we should leave.
Bethany Brown
Researcher
Human Rights Watch
Around the world, millions of older women and older people generally, routinely experience violations of their human rights. Each year, thousands of widows across Zimababwe have their property grabbed by their husband’s relatives. They lose their homes, they lose their fields, they lose everything.
Maliyaziwa Malunga
Widow who lost property to in-laws
They take all the goods we are using with my husband, even cars, properties. They left me with nothing. //A marriage certificate offers protection sometimes, obviously.
Bethany Brown
Researcher
Human Rights Watch
A widow would need to prove that she was married in order to be able to fend off relatives’ property grabbing in courts. Estimates are that up to 70% of marriages in Zimbabwe are unregistered, customary law unions.
Slyvia Chirawu
National Coordinator
Women and Law in Southern Africa
Research and Education Trust (WLSA)
Imagine the process a woman that doesn’t have a marriage certificate has to go through. She has to go to the court, convince the court that she was married. And sometimes even if she might have five, six children, the relatives turn around and say she wasn’t married.
Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga
Widow & Member of Parliament
An African marriage has always been understood as a communal marriage. It used to work when it was being understood if the husband dies, what the other family members are doing in coming in and taking responsibility //however that has now been changed because of greed because of the general changes that have happened in society.
Widows of Brothers
If our husbands were alive, they [the in-laws] would not do what they are doing. This harassment is happening because our husbands died.
Bethany Brown
Researcher
Human Rights Watch
If a widow overcomes that initial hurdle overcomes of getting herself to court, she still will face the struggle to be able to pay for transportation and court fees.
Lucia Masuka Zanhi
Legal Resources Foundation
The court fees also, they’re a challenge and I know authorities will say but perhaps for some cases it is just $5 or it’s a dollar. But for the groups that we’re talking about, the groups that we interact with, the rural population and even some of those who are in the urban areas, they are not able to raise the $1 or the $5 that we’re talking about so I think it’s one area again that then hinders access to justice.
Bob Isaiah Muchadya Dzere
Nhaka African Worldview Trust, NGO for widow’s rights
We have to advocate, that this has to stop. // I think much more work should be done to do outreach work, advocacy so that the people are conscious about it, they’re educated about it. If my wife becomes a widow, I want her to miss my presence only. Not any other thing. She must have all the property with her and I am taking care that the property is not grabbed away from her. The registration of the house and the car it’s under her name.
Bethany Brown
Researcher
Human Rights Watch
Widows in Zimbabwe need to have access to information about their rights to property. They need to know about ways that they can defend their property through the court system if someone tries to grab it from them. And the government needs to make registration available for marriages of all types.
Widows of brothers:
It’s hard to be subjected to this kind of suffering when your husband dies.
Based on interviews with 59 widows in all 10 provinces of Zimbabwe between May and October 2016, this report documents the human rights vulnerabilities and abuses that widows in Zimbabwe face.
In 2013, Zimbabwe adopted a new constitution that provides for equal rights for women, including for inheritance and property. In practice, however, existing laws only apply to widows in officially registered marriages. Estimates are that most marriages in Zimbabwe are conducted under customary law and are not registered, so, in effect, these laws afford no protection from property-grabbing relatives.
Many widows described how they face insurmountable obstacles defending their property or taking legal steps to reclaim it. Fending off relatives while mourning their husbands and selling off productive assets like cattle to afford court fees and transportation were just some of the challenges. Once in court, widows said they were at a disadvantage without an official record of their marriage if it was a customary union. Courts look to the in-laws – the very people who stand to gain – to confirm the marriage, putting widows at the mercy of their husband’s family.
Nearly all of the widows interviewed for the report who successfully challenged efforts by in-laws to take over their property had benefited from legal services offered by organizations like the Legal Resources Foundation, and Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Education Trust, Zimbabwe.
Older widows described feeling that the loss of their homes and the fields they had worked on with their husbands was catastrophic, as they had no time or energy to rebuild a lifetime of work. Many struggled to support themselves when their main source of livelihood, their land, had been taken from them.
Human Rights Watch conducted this research as part of an effort to map the vulnerabilities of older people to human rights abuses. With the rapid growth of older populations worldwide, there is a growing need to understand how discrimination, ageism, neglect, and abuse affect older people and what steps governments should take to protect their rights. By 2050, an estimated two billion people – almost a quarter of the world’s population – will be over age 60. The majority will be women. Widows face varying challenges in different countries and cultural settings. Property grabbing can be common in the Southern Africa region, and many older women have few other economic options. Widows of all ages are at risk of property grabbing and its grave harmful impacts.
Some of those interviewed said their in-laws simply forced them out of their homes immediately after their husbands died. Others said their in-laws threatened, physically intimidated, and insulted them to make them leave. In some cases, distant relatives of the deceased showed up years later and took over their property.
Many women did not know that they had a right to the property they held with their spouses. Others said they were wary of jeopardizing relationships with in-laws with whom they had shared their lives for many years, and who they had hoped would support them and their children.
According to the 2012 census, Zimbabwe is home to about 587,000 widows, and most women 60 and over are widowed. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that at least 70 percent of women in rural areas are in unregistered customary unions and are living under customary law.
“The government should take immediate steps to register all marriages, including customary unions, reform its marriage laws, and raise awareness of the property rights of widows,” said Brown. “That would help protect thousands of women each year against the injustice of being summarily thrown out of their homes when they become widows.”
Selected testimony from interviews:
“He [my brother-in-law] has taken all of my fields and even tilled my yard [to plant crops] up to my doorstep. Now, he says that I cannot walk on “his” fields. He says that I do not belong there. I reported this to the village headman, but he just tells us to live in peace. My brother-in-law is insistent. Maybe he is really happy to see us suffer. At my age, where can I go? I cannot start afresh.”
– Deborah, 58 from Mashonaland East
“At the funeral of my brother-in-law, a few years previous to my husband’s passing, they [my in-laws] took everything, and left my sister in-law and kids destitute. I took them in. Now, my mother-in-law sleeps on her son’s [my brother-in-law’s] marital bed, with blankets made as gifts for him and his wife."
– Charity, 49, from Mashonaland East
“I didn’t see the will but found out that there was one in court. My brother-in-law was the executor [of my husband’s will]. He mistreated me. Immediately after [his death], I sold household effects to survive for food. My in-laws saw that I sold things to buy food. My brother-in-law had me arrested [for selling things in the estate]. In court I was found not guilty. I served one week in jail [before trial]. It was terrible. One week was like a month.”
– Mindy, 54, from Midlands
“Before my husband was even buried, my brother-in-law was making moves. He was running around from [government] office to [government] office. He tried to get my husband’s pension. They [officials] said it wasn’t ready but that he needed the death certificate for it. He got the death certificate by saying that his brother [my husband] was a widower … I learned about three weeks after my husband’s death that I was [being] left out. He took my car. I was surprised that this happened. We were a close family.”
– Bethel, 41, Bulawayo
