Challenges of where to live when divorced, widowed

He was rude to her and her family and there was no amount of loss either human or material in her father’s house that would make the husband allow her to visit her parents to commiserate with them. In fact he had cut her off from her parents and relatives.Tired of the kind of life […]

He was rude to her and her family and there was no amount of loss either human or material in her father’s house that would make the husband allow her to visit her parents to commiserate with them. In fact he had cut her off from her parents and relatives.
Tired of the kind of life she was living, Ramatu decided to seek for divorce in a Shari’a court. After a hard battle, she was able to secure her divorce. Now free from the bondage she was living in, the divorced woman began to think of ways of forging ahead. Being a civil servant, she saved part of her salary to buy a house for herself and her two children.
She could not go back to her parents because they are living in the village and her working place is in the city. After a long saving, she was able to get a small house in one of the sprouting wards in Kano metropolis.
Now instead of enjoying her peace, this woman is faced with a more displeasing challenge. Though a decent woman, neighbours could not allow her have peace and this is not because she is bringing men to her house or is housing bad people or because she was of bad character, her offence is because she has no husband around her.
She faces different kinds of stigmatization despite her apparent modesty. They have made it a routine to taunt her either by indirectly passing satirical words on her or sometimes by blocking her car so that she would be forced to take a commercial vehicle to work. What baffles her is that she is Hausa by tribe, a Muslim and living in the midst of the Hausa people, Muslims for that matter, yet she is despised and stigmatized. Her children are not spared either.
This is one instance of the kind of challenge divorcee and widows are facing in our society. Some people have made it a habit to taunt every woman they see living on her own however decent she might be.
Malam Ibrahim Musa said it was stereotype that is disturbing some men, “You know there are some men that cannot just agree that a woman can live and fend for herself without her becoming wayward. It is unfortunate that we still have some people with this kind of thinking. That is why they can easily accuse and molest a woman living without a husband and calling her names despite her decency,” he said.
Sheikh Ibrahim Daurawa, a renowned Islamic scholar and the Commander General Hisbah Board said the attitude of some of these women is responsible for the treatment they are getting from the society. He said some women instead of protecting their honour and integrity through good behaviours revert to bad behaviors capable of attracting negative treatment from members of the society.
“It is the bad eggs among the women that are putting other women in this problem.
“Some women when left without husbands convert their houses to a meeting point for men and women. In this case, the society will not close its eyes to see such negative behaviour happening in their vicinity. We do receive complaint from people about some of these women that convert their houses to such centre,” he said.
He suggested that the best way is for the divorcee or the widow to either stay in her parents’ house or should rent a house where a man is residing with his family or at most, she should allocate a section of the house to a male relative so that he could stay with them to guard against the stigmatization of the society.
Hajiya Azumi Abdullahi on her part  said men are not supposed to generalize their treatment of women because according to her not all women are of questionable characters, “Just because there are bad eggs among this category of women is not enough  justification for despising others,” she said.
Buttressing her point, Hajiya Azumi said because of the level of poverty in the country, many parents don’t have the space to accommodate their divorced or widowed daughters most especially if they have children. “In Kano you can find a house with only two small rooms housing a father with his wife and many children. In this kind of houses, how do you expect them to accommodate their divorced daughter with her children?,” she said.
She added that members of the society should know that even parents are running away from this additional responsibility and even where the parent accommodates their daughter, she would be living a constrained life due to apparent stigma from her poverty stricken parents.
According to her, it is high time that the society stopped this stereo type and accepts the fact that divorced women could now live independent of their parents and relatives if they could afford to rent or buy a house.
“What is it that women are not doing now? Are there not women now that are shouldering matrimonial responsibility left on them by husbands? If they could be so neglected and allowed to fend for themselves, why should they be stigmatized when they rent or buy a house to live in with their children?,” she queried.
She therefore advised men to treat these kind of women based on the type of behaviour exhibited by them, “They should treat these women according to who they are. If they find a woman with questionable character, they should treat her accordingly and where they find a woman of modesty and integrity, they should not only respect her but should assist her because of her being a woman.”
Hajiya Azumi who is a mother of seven, advised women engaged in acts capable of tarnishing the image of other women to fear God and desist from doing that so that women with no husbands would be respected and not despised by the society.