The Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) has spotlighted its partnership with Modern Shelter Systems & Services Limited, a collaboration that has empowered 106 vulnerable widows across six northern states and the FCT with critical rental assistance, providing each with ₦100,000 to shield them from eviction, abuse, and destitution.
This initiative, implemented under WRAPA’s Mustard Seed Widows Shelter Project, has enabled many widows to regain their dignity, send their children back to school, and stabilize their small businesses.
As Nigeria joins the global community to mark International Widows’ Day 2025, WRAPA is calling for urgent and coordinated national action to protect and uplift millions of widows across the country.
Under this year’s theme “Widows’ Rights are Human Rights: Empowerment Through Justice and Inclusion”, WRAPA highlights the plight of over 8 million widows grappling with displacement, discrimination, economic exclusion, and systemic neglect, especially in the face of rising insecurity across states like Borno, Zamfara, Benue, Niger, Bayelsa, and Enugu.
“Widowhood in Nigeria is too often a sentence to poverty and discrimination,” WRAPA stated. “With deepening poverty and increasing displacement, urgent protection is long overdue. A widow’s grief should not be compounded by injustice, dispossession, and marginalization.”
The organization called on the Federal and State Governments, traditional and religious institutions, and the private sector to implement targeted interventions for widows, including the enactment and enforcement of laws that secure their access to housing, inheritance, and justice; the integration of widows into national social protection policies and programs; the abolition of harmful traditional practices that discriminate against and oppress widows; and investment in sustainable economic empowerment initiatives that foster resilience and reduce vulnerability.
According to WRAPA, the 2025 phase of the Mustard Seed Shelter Project will expand to an additional six southern states and the FCT, reinforcing the initiative as a national priority.
“This model shows what can be achieved when policies and resources are intentionally aligned to protect and empower widows,” WRAPA stated. “A single act of charity is not enough. Widows deserve a system that guarantees their rights, economic security, and dignity a system rooted in justice, equity, and the rule of law.”
On the occasion of International Widows’ Day 2025, WRAPA urged the Government to fully implement Chapter 4 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution (as amended) and adhere to its commitments under the African Union’s Maputo Protocol, especially Sections 20 and 21, and the domesticated African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
“Widowhood is neither sought nor invited. It is a divine and inevitable phase of life that may one day affect any one of us. Our widows deserve more than sympathy or sporadic acts of charity they deserve a strong, inclusive, and enforced legal and social protection framework. They deserve equity, belonging, and justice,” WRAPA stated.
