Hundreds of women were widowed during Israel’s war on Gaza - left having to support their children on their own. But in this conservative society, these widows often find themselves victimised by cultural and economic discrimination.
At first, Karima Abd-Rabo’s description of her life sounds like the complaints of working mothers all over the world: splitting her time between work and the household chores, with the underlying guilty feeling that she’s not spending enough time with her children.
But Karima is different from other working mothers. She lives in Gaza, and was widowed during Israel’s recent war on the Strip. Her husband Ramzi died in an air raid in January. Suddenly she became the household’s main earner and solely responsible for her 3 youngest children.
On top of the tangible heartache, it’s a dramatic lifestyle change. She was just 15 when she got married. Her husband was her whole life:
"I knew nothing of the outside world. I had never been to the market, I had never been out, and I never left the house, except to visit my parents. I used to depend on my husband for everything. He really was the pillar of the house. But when I lost him, I was forced to go out of the house, and make some money."
Karima now works in her mother-in-law’s shop. She keeps the accounts and deals with customers. It’s not easy for a woman who was not used to socialising outside her immediate family. And Karima’s not alone. Hundreds of women were widowed during Israel’s war on Gaza, and now they’re left having to support their children on their own.
I spoke to Mona Al Shawa from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. They published a report called Through Women’s Eyes which looked at the effects of the war on the women of Gaza. It makes for sobering reading.
Gaza is a conservative society where the woman’s traditional role is at home to take care of the house and children. Mona told me that when widows are thrust into their husband’s role, they’re often victimised by cultural and economic discrimination. With unemployment sky-high in Gaza, jobs are much more likely to go to men, especially considering that many of the women are not highly educated.
For that reason, many of the women, especially if still young, choose to marry again. But that often means losing the children from the previous marriage, who are traditionally raised by the late husband’s family. And for that very reason, some women may also be pressurised into marrying their dead husband’s brother, so that the family can stay together. Not easy decisions to make by women who have few choices.
Karima knows she’s lucky to have a job. But she says life without a husband is very difficult. Where she lives, having a husband is everything.
"A lot has changed in my life since the death of my husband. A married woman is very different to a widow. No one comes to see me, except for my mother in law, because as a widow, no one is allowed to visit me. My daughters come to visit me. The difficulties I face are mostly to do with raising the children. They lost their father - and the role of a mother then becomes really hard."
My husband was everything in my life. I feel so depressed now; my life has no more taste. I lost him so suddenly. When I think of him, I imagine him sitting here, with his children, with us, and it tears me apart that he is no longer around."
She says she has only herself to rely on now. So she gets on with the hard task of raising a family in Gaza ... on her own.
