• There are some men who are sometimes paid by the widows to assist them to perform these rituals.
•Mildred even lost her job at a local church as teacher because parents feared that she will ‘kill’ their children.
Image: FILE
For years, wife inheritance has persisted in the Nyanza region as a way of fulfilling Luo culture.
According to the beliefs of the community, widows are expected to engage in sexual cleansing to remove the impurity ascribed to them after their husband’s death.
There are some men who are sometimes paid by the widows to assist them to perform these rituals.
This has been blamed for being a contributing factor to the spread of HIV/AIDS in the region.
The Kenya Population-based HIV Impact Assessment report of 2018 shows that Luo Nyanza has a higher HIV prevalence than the rest of the country.
Homa Bay county’s prevalence is the highest at 19.6 per cent, four times the national average of 4.9 per cent.
Kisumu is second with 17.5 per cent, Siaya third at 15.3 per cent and Migori fourth at 13 per cent.
Jackie Odhiambo, the founder of Nyanam International for widowed women in Kisumu said there has been a crop of men called professional widow inheritors.
They willingly agree to inherit widows.
To these men, inheriting widows is like a job because they are bridging a gap that was supposed to be filled by family members.
"For example, if a widow is accused of killing her husband, some cultural rituals have to be performed to prove their innocence, at some point, widows are supposed to do sexual cleansing to prove their innocence," Odhiambo said.
This she said has contributed to the spread of HIV.
"HIV is spreading more because of professional widow inheritors and I think there are a lot of questions to understand the patterns of HIV dynamics in widowhood," Odhiambo said.
Some of these men have ended up being problematic because they cannot provide for the widow and her family because they only want to be fed.
Odhiambo also asked Parliament to pass legislation that will address the challenges widows are facing including; social stigma because some of them are being accused of killing their husbands, property inheritance, right to remarry and have a stable relationship after the death of their husbands.
Mildred Odhiambo, not her real name is a widow and a mother of two children who lost her husband from HIV 18 years ago in Kisumu. She only realised that her husband was HIV positive after burial.
She was later tested and found to have been infected too. She was pushed by her in-laws to look for another man to inherit her.
Mildred even lost her job at a local church as teacher because parents feared that she will ‘kill’ their children.
She said she was discriminated against and isolated when she refused to remarry.
"No one wanted to associate with me. They claimed that their children will die if I beat them," Mildred said.
On 15 March 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted "Addressing the Situation of Widows, "the first ever-ever UN resolution on widowhood by consensus.
The Global Fund for widows states that; "In some parts of the world, widows experience human rights violations and harmful practices such as disinheritance institutional discrimination that limits their ability to access justice. Some widows experience forced remarriage to an in-law.".