Gender Politics : A comparative Analysis of Widowhood Rights Among the Urhobo and Gbagyi People of Nigeria

This book is premised on the violation of constitutional rights of widows as related to widowhood practices in Nigeria. Women as a group constitute half of the world population, yet women are politically, economically and socially subordinated. This has led to unequal treatment that exist in every sphere of life namely political representation,professional segregation,educational qualification e.t.c. Nigerian women,as in other parts of the world have had a fair share of these unequal treatment.Discriminatory widowhood practices are prevalent in some parts of Nigeria.Drawing from extensive village based field work,this book examined the contradictions between documented rights and widowhood practices and found puzzling variance in the intensity of widowhood practices among the Urhobo and Gbagyi people of Nigeria. The author asserts that widows,irrespective of tribe are faced with cultural practices and the reason widowhood practices vary is culture based. Bad widowhood practices create barriers to access to education,employment and hinder social inclusion economic ablity and National development.