WIDOW CLEANSING When a woman's husband passes away, in some cultures, the wife is to be cleansed from the husband's spirit.
Widow Cleansing, Inheritance and Property Ownership
Was it polygamy, was it other traditional practices such as "
widow cleansing" (where a woman whose husband has died has sex with other men to "cleanse" her)?
So is the practice of "
widow cleansing," in which the brother of a dead man marries his widowed sister-in-law--an obvious problem if his brother died of AIDS.
For example women are now talking openly about the wrongs of polygamy, or sikenge or
widow cleansing. This I think has been the biggest success of this project--we broke the silence--the issue of harmful cultural practices has been exposed.
Other practices involve 'cleansing' and cutting women's bodies, such as
widow cleansing and scarification.
* Review customary laws and enact laws that protect women and girls from harmful and oppressive cultural practices and beliefs that infringe on the rights and dignity of women and children, such as sexual readiness testing/forced sex, violent initiation practices, polyamy, child marriages, widow inheritance and
widow cleansing.