BONDO, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Losing a husband to death among communities that still cling on cultural practices such as Luo community in Western Kenya can be a nasty experience and one of the worst feminine sorrows.
 
The mourning process is a painful and a disturbing ritual that sometimes lands the widows into a secondhand sexual partner sometimes without consent, and without any element of love. But even worse, the husband’s property including land can sometimes be taken away by relatives, leaving the widow and her children in a destitute situation.

That is exactly what happened to Rosalia Adhiambo from Pala village in Siaya County, when her husband died in 2004. But today, thanks to the Alternative Dispute Resolution method of settling domestic woes, Adhiambo is in full control of her husband’s estate of more than 50 acres of land, and she has constructed a house where she lives with her children.

“It was the worst experience of my life,” said Adhiambo. “After losing both parents in law, the only brother to my husband, and now my husband, I knew it was the end of the road for me and my children,”

Immediately her husband was laid to rest in Pala village, she was approached by a close relative to her husband seeking to inherit her, as required by the Luo traditions. But given the rituals performed as part of the inheritance process, which includes having unprotected sex with unknown mentally retarded person as a way of casting away demons of death, she turned down the offer.

“That was the beginning of my tribulations,” she said. “I was banished from my matrimonial home later in 2007 by my husband’s cousin who was eying my husband’s property,” she narrated.

She went back to her parents with her three kids, and three more kids belonging to her late brother-in-law, who were left behind after his youthful wife found another husband elsewhere.

“This was a very heavy burden to my parents, but they were ready to help me shoulder it,” she said. But in 2009, Adhiambo returned to her matrimonial home, where she settled in a small house her husband had constructed for a shop.

But all was not well. She could not freely cultivate the land her husband left behind, since it had been taken over by the cousin. The hell broke loose in 2014, ten years after the burial of her husband, when the cousin gave her a 24 hour ultimatum to leave for good.

“He did not even care about the children. He had muzzled support of other relatives and before I know it, all belongings were thrown out of the house.

Thank God, as she shared her tribulations with friends, she came to learn about what ActionAid International Kenya was doing in the area to protect rights of widows and destitute children through community based organisations.

“I begged my husband’s cousin to give me a few more hours to look for a rental house at the nearby market centre,” she said. But in reality, she went to the ActionAid supported para-legal group’s office known as ‘Support Community and Democracy Alliance (SCODA).

“While I was at SCODA, he kept calling, but I assured him that I had found a house, and that I was waiting for the owner to come over so that we can agree on the price,” she said.

That made the husband’s cousin more patient.

At that moment, SCODA mobilised a number of relatives and village elders who were remorseful to her, and summoned them to come over immediately. The area chief was also invited, and to their surprise, those who wanted to evict her were cornered by unexpected set of guests.

Given the big number of remorseful relatives and elders, the cousin had no choice but to listen to them. It was in that meeting when it was resolved that the land belonged to Adhiambo, her children, and her brother-in-law’s children. That marked the turning point.

According to Rogers Ochieng, the Programs Coordinator for SCODA, voices of Luo elders are highly respected in the community. “When they speak, people listen. And now we are using them to resolve such land related cases,” he said.

Today, the widow has constructed a house, and recently, she was able to sell one acre of the land to pay school fees for her son who has joined the university.

“This is a success story. I never knew that I would be allowed to posses all the 50 acres, build a house, and even be allowed to sell part of it for school fees,” she said with a grin on her face.

She has so far joined the para-legal team, and now she helps them trace such cases from the community.

“Since 2002, we have solved hundreds of cases of different nature using the Alternative Conflict Resolution method, thanks to ActionAid who took us through training,” said Ochieng.