JAMMU AND KASHMIR,INDIA, July 26,2001: Twelve years of armed conflict in Jammu and Kashmir has left over 54,000 women without husbands, many of them under the age of 40. In an effort to give these bereaved souls a new status, India’s National Human Rights Commission issued a proposal that the word “widow” be replaced with a more honorable phrase such as “wife of deceased”. Orders were issued last May to all provincial governments to adopt this proposal. So far the states of Jammu and Kashmir have embraced the directive and widows in these two states have found a new sense of respectability.
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