Gayatri is a social worker since 2001 and a Community Correspondent. The veteran activist has worked consistently to break down historically ingrained and accepted caste and gender-based discrimination whose effects she personally experienced. Girls in her village were prohibited from continuing their education and were married at an early age. Gayatri, however, was determined to study. The higher secondary school…

Gayatri Ambedkar

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The widows of Dhamaruwa village of Uttar Pradesh are a truly disenfranchised community. The government’s failing to provide the widow-pension has weighed most heavily upon these women, reports Community Correspondent Gayatri Devi.

“My husband passed away two years ago, but I haven’t received any widow-pension,” says Shilawanti Devi. Adding further, “we have filled our forms but the Village Head doesn’t talk to us.”

CALL TO ACTION: Call Ms. Annu, Provisional Officer for Ambedkar Nagar district, on +91-9565730088, and demand that these women receive the assistance that’s been promised to them.

The Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme was set up in order to provide some measure of security to widows, so that they may be able to look after their family and themselves in the wake of their husband’s death. However, the scheme is yet to be effective in most districts around the country.

In the report, CC Gayatri documents the instances in which widows haven’t been able to receive the funds, despite having qualified for the scheme. The Village Head refused to be interviewed for this report and has had nothing to say on the matter.