This is heart breaking..
The widows of Boko Haram writes Chika Oduah in aljazeera.com
Falmata Gana, widowed after Boko Haram killed her husband in 2012, walks out of the small room she shares with 11 children in Maiduguri [Chika Oduah/Al Jazeera]
Maiduguri, Nigeria - For four months and 10 days, Falmata Gana never left her home. She kept her face devoid of makeup and stopped bathing with scented soaps. Her perfumed oils were tucked away, and she did not buy any new clothes. Her traditional Islamic mourning period of takaba - as it is known in the Hausa language predominantly spoken in northern Nigeria - ended years ago, but Gana is still suffering the loss of her husband. In 2012, Boko Haram fighters ambushed and shot him dead as he drove home from work one evening. He was a civil servant.
"I did not see him die," Gana says in a graven voice. She pulls a dark blue hijab forward, covering more of her face. "I heard the story from eyewitnesses."
A polygamous home, her husband's first wife left the house a day after his death. She never returned. Gana was left with the first wife's children - and also her own. Three years later, the 35-year-old is struggling to pay the $7 monthly rent and school fees for 11 children.
"In our culture, people value married women far better than a single woman, or even a widow. So widows are usually left to fend for themselves," says Rabi Ismail, vice president of the National Council of Women Societies in Maiduguri. "We have seen so many women roaming the streets with their children, and when you ask them, they say, 'No husband'."
Gana tries to sell food from her home - bags of wheat, packaged noodles, and seasonings. To supplement her monthly income, she sews dresses for $3 each........
The Muslim Widows Association is connecting nearly 4,000 widows with donor agencies, and the Christian Widows Association has up to 2,000 on its list. A native of Chibok, in southern Borno state, where almost 300 schoolgirls were abducted last April, Esther Abbashuwa, vice president of the Christian Widows Association, says she encourages widows who are still young to remarry.
Ismail shares the sentiment but says most men would be reluctant to take on the responsibility of providing for a woman with children. "Honestly, these women do not have a future," Ismail says.
"I know many of them who are just waiting to die. The government may offer to take care of some, but how many can they help? Many will suffer."
those words says it all . The stupid religions of Nigeria must take part of the blame for such terrible situation of women folks of Nigeria. All that and more is written by Chika Oduah
She is such a role model to Nigerians...She left AMRIKA., American shores to go Nigeria and lift that nari land., read it all at the link. I wish such people join politics ..
Topic: Nigerian Boko Haram Brutal Rogues Kill again in the name of Islam