‘Bias against widows should end’

Panaji: Social worker and writer Naman Sawant, on International Women’s Day, made an appeal to lawmakers and the legal fraternity to help end widow discrimination and the practice of disrobing deceased women and men during cremation.
“The order against disrobing was issued a long time ago, but implementation of this order is lacking,” the former researcher at NIO said. She was speaking after being felicitated at an International Women’s Day programme organised by the Goa High Court Bar Association.
“Social reformation takes place very slowly,” she added. Discrimination against a widowed woman at the time of her husband’s death and long-term discrimination until her own death continues in the state, especially in rural Goa, she said.
“There should be a law to end this discrimination because there is so much respect for a lady with her husband and so much disrespect for a lady without her husband. Is the existence of the husband the only criterion to respect a woman? We are living in the 21st century, and we still see the existence of the husband as a criterion to respect women. Somewhere this has to stop,” she said.
She was among three women and one man felicitated by the association on International Women’s Day.
Sawant, a founder member of Sahitya Manthan Sattari, which promotes the literary movement in rural areas, is also a member of the Konkani Advisory Committee of the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi.