Widows' Rights International

Our Story

Widows' Rights International is a UK based nonprofit, non-governmental organisation working in the field of human rights for widows. Support the international campaign to end harmful cultural practices which ignore the human rights of widows and lead to their dire poverty, distress and social exclusion.

WRI was founded in 2001 as Empowering Widows for Development.

In 2018: there are an estimated 258 million widows worldwide but they are largely invisible, not included in national data or mentioned as a group worthy of recognition. Numbers of widows are increasing hugely due to conflict.

We are actively campaigning for the inclusion of widows in UN texts and are delighted that the CSW62 (2018) Outcome document mentioned widows. This was the first time widows had been recognised in this important annual forum.

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