Nepal, June 23 -- Every year on June 23, the world observes International Widows Day. But for over 258 million women globally, the impact of widowhood is not confined to a single day of recognition. It is a lived reality shaped by systemic exclusion, persistent poverty and cultural discrimination. Widowhood remains one of the most overlooked human rights and gender issues of our time. It cuts across geography, age, religion and socioeconomic status, affecting women in vastly different societies, resulting in a shared outcome: marginalisation.

Widowhood is an experience marked by cruelty in patriarchal societies, where a woman's identity is tightly bound to her husband. The death of a spouse is not just a personal loss, but a rupture in h...