The police summoned the seven sons and my husband’s younger brother. They were served restraining orders in court, which also said that a formal distribution of property should be made. An uncle said that an inventory was needed, and a death certificate, and that the magistrate’s court said that I should provide all of these things. I did not go to school, so I did not know what was required. The big challenge was that they said I should do everything.83 Over and over again, widows explained that their in-laws told them that they would apply customary law with regard to the distribution of the estate, like Charity’s relatives, referenced above: “At the funeral, my mother-in-law told me that the 5.11 Certificate [the certificate documenting a civil marriage] was just a piece of paper, and that they intended to follow cultural practices.”84 With the announcement of this intention came the threat of property grabbing. Just accessing things like a death certificate when a couple was in an unregistered customary union, a necessary document to change title to property, can be a challenge. Some did not know how to go about obtaining one, and the process does not appear to be uniform. One widow related that her husband passed away in a hospital, and she was given a death certificate along with the burial order. Others described how their in-laws took the burial order in order to attempt to obtain the death certificate from a registrar’s office. Many widows told Human Rights Watch that relatives of their husbands had to race to the registrar to attempt to obtain the certificate ahead of the widows. Relatives who succeeded falsely claimed that their brother or son did not have a wife, or had a different wife than the widow. Several widows told us that all correspondence about court appearances were only communicated through male in-laws who, in some cases, withheld it from them to sabotage the proceedings. Zelda, 55, from Mashonaland East, for example, told Human 83 Human Rights Watch interview with Michelle, May 27, 2016. 84 Human Rights Watch interview with Charity, May 25, 2016. “YOU WILL GET NOTHING” 36