Health and Socio-cultural Problems of Women in Rural Butajira
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Date
1998-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Studies on the social and cultural problems affecting the health of women is rare
in Ethiopia. This study illustrates the common socio-cultural problems
influencing the health of women and the women's perception towards health and
illness in rural Butajira. Qualitative and quantitative methods were employed
to develop the data collection instrument and actual collection of data,
respectively. A total of 675 randomly selected rural women participated in the
study. Over 94 percent of women are illiterate and only 8.7 percent of girls are
sent to school. The mean working hour for rural women in Butajira is 15 hours.
Very high proportion (96.6%) women are victims ofFGM. The decision making
power of women at a house hold level is low. Women have almost no access to
information, about 88 percent of them never listened to the radio for the last six
months. About 97 percent of women reported that they are suffering from some
kind of infectious, obstetrics or mental illness at the time of the survey.
Punishment from God, lack of nutritious food, exposure to cold, evil eye and evil
spirit possession were the major perceived causes of illness. The participants
mostly use herbal medication during sickness or buy drugs with out consulting
health workers in response to illnesses. They give high regard to traditional
healers, witchcraft and religious leaders to solve health problems. The women
by large have no idea on how to promote health except that they resume
individual or group prayer. Therefore, it is concluded that women in rural
Butajira are surrounded by traditional taboos and social problems affecting health.
In order to improve the situation of women the health service strategy needs to
be devised after considering what women believe, what they actually do and
need. Such strategies should be based on local problems and the involvement of
locally accepted healers.
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Health and Socio-cultural problems