About 80 selected widows from the Elmina Widows Association, Tarkwa Widows Association, Tarkoradi Widows Association and Cape Coast Widows Association who are all under the tentacles of the Widows Alliance Network (WANE) last Saturday held an extra-ordinary one-day seminar at the GHAPOHA Senior Club House in Tarkoradi to educate widows on their Legal Rights. The seminar was organized by the Mama Zimbi Foundation (MZF) to increase the knowledge-base of widows in the Central Region of Ghana to deal with cruel practices meted out to them by some family members of their deceased husbands. At the seminar were prominent individuals like the Honourable Betty Bosumtwi-Sam, who is the Deputy Western Regional Minister and Lawyer Ebenezer Kwesi Kwaitoo who is the President of the Western Region Branch of the Ghana Bar Association. Others prominent Chiefs at the seminar to support the widows were Nana Semenshia Darko II, who is the Gyasewahene of Akwamufie and Nana Nana Kwabina Nketsia, who is the Omanhehe of Essikado. Honourable Betty Bosumtwi-Sam, who gave the key note address, spoke on the Ghanaian traditional widowhood rites and the need to discourage the aspect of it which seeks to demean and subject the widows to public ridicule and preserve the other good aspect which we can be proud of as a modern society as our true culture and identity. She added that, besides knowing about their legal rights, widows should stick to hard work to take care of themselves and their children, and also stay away from men who will lead them into promiscuity. Lawyer Ebenezer Kwesi Kwaitoo, who chaired the seminar, explained the specifics of the Intestate Succession Law, 1985, PNDC Law 111, and added that though the Law as it stands, ensures fairness in the distribution of the dead spouse and also brings changes in the customary practice where wife and children are prevented from inheriting the property of the husband and father respectively, widows in Ghana are still ejected from the late husband’s home with their children. And in most occasions the education of the children come to an end immediately the father dies. He added that the Ghana Bar Association has legal aids available to support legal issues of widows, and all widows in Ghana must access it through the Mama Zimbi Foundation. Mrs. Joyce Akumaa Dongotey-Padi known in public life as Akumaa Mama Zimbi, who is the Executive Director of Mama Zimbi Foundation (MZF), the organization that has the Widows Alliance Network (WANE) as one of its projects call for a total review of the Intestate Succession Law, 1985, PNDC Law 111 and amendment of certain aspect to reflect our current socio-economic and cultural development. She therefore called for a comprehensive legislation to be enacted by Parliament to protect widows and their vulnerable children which must include the abolishing of obsolete widowhood rights. Madam Rosemary Acquah who is the President of the Tarkoradi Widows Association charged her fellow widows not to be ashamed and allow themselves to be relegated to the background because they are widows, but they should depend on the Law and God. Though this seminar was as part of the nationwide sanitization of widows on their Fundamental Human Rights and Legal Rights, this occasion was also used to officially induct the Executives Officers of Elmina Widows Association, Tarkwa Widows Association, Tarkoradi Widows Association and Cape Coast Widows Association into office. Source: Mama Zimbi Foundation