There are 245 million widows in the world, yet their problems are often ignored, states this article in The Guardian UK on the occasion of International Widows Day on 23 June. 115 million widows still live in extreme poverty. In many cases, their children have to leave school to go to work to plug the gap in the household income left by their father's death; their daughters, in particular, are therefore often at a high risk of sexual exploitation.