Abstract:
Sri Lanka had faced war for three decades. It affected people's lifestyles and created
vulnerability in society, such as war widows, women-headed families, disabled,
missing people, and displacements. The main objective of the research was to identify
the socio-economic situations of the war widows, and the sub-objective was to find
out the relations between war and widows in the Northern and Eastern provinces of
Sri Lanka. This study was used secondary data collection methods. There were 15
pieces of literature used for this research for data collection. SPSS and thematic
analysis were used for data analysis, and the women in development (WID) theory
was applied. War widows face problems every day, as well as socio-economic
conditions in society. Poverty, young age and fewer experience women, lack of
safety, children's educational related issues, health issues, future generation issues,
gender inequality, socio-cultural problems and disrespect, remarriage, double day
employment or work, no employment, risk work, no land ownership, lack of income
and savings, lack of loan facilities, basic needs issue, illegal sexual relationships were
findings of the research. War widows face a double burden in the society where they
have responsibilities to care for the family. Giving educational opportunities to their
children, empowering war widows, improving their personalities, implementing
model planning, and motivating them are recommendations for reducing the socioeconomic
conditions of the war widows in the North East, Sri Lanka.