Statement of the Problem :

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world having a most portion of its population living
below the poverty line.Among all of them rural poor widows generally undergo unparallel amount of
sufferings and vulnerability. It is commonly known that widowhood is highly linked with a wide range of
deprivations across low income areas in Bangladesh. In many societies, widow has very limited social
status and is excluded from social participation ( Akhter, 2001; Swain and Pillai, 2005). In Bangladesh
widows are not generally seemed to fare better. In both rural and urban areas, a daughter-in-law enjoys a
secondary position. Widows face legal, religious and social restrictions which impede their ownership of
property and their option to re-marry (World Bank, 2016). The poor people, particularly the rural poor
widows in Bangladesh have the least opportunities to live comfortably with financial security and social
dignity. In order to address the poverty of the widows, the government of Bangladesh undertook the
scheme called "Allowance Scheme for Widowed and Husband Deserted Distressed Women" which is
mostly known as "Widow Allowance Programme" in 1998. The objectives of the Programme are to
support them through financial assistance. In Bangladesh, many government and non-government
agencies have already taken some initiatives to improve the quality of life of the poor widows on a whole
in stead of focusing specially on the rural poor widows.As the rural poor widows are mostly sufferers in
this case so we need to formulate strategic plan only for the improvement of the rural poor widows in
Bangladesh. So this research focuses on demographic and economic information, means of livelihood of
rural poor widows and the challenges they face in social life.