This article explores the multitude of widowhood rites performed in small communities in the Bongo district in the Upper East Region of Ghana that infringe widows’ human rights and freedoms. Widows are stigmatized in these communities, viewed as exuding bad luck that has caused her husband, and potential future husbands, to die. They are then made, against their will, to perform rituals such as water purifications whereby they are forced to strip naked and drink a sort of black concoction, then forced to marry their deceased spouse’s brother.