Abstract
The objective of this research is to investigate the impacts of cultural practices on women empowerment in Offa Woreda, Wolaita zone, of southern Ethiopia. This study design is purely qualitative and descriptive in its approach. Both primary and secondary source of data for this study was obtained from Offa Woreda women who are engaged in different economic activities. Hence, the geographical scope of the study contained Busha and wachiga-Eesho kebeles of Offa Woreda. Since the study aimed at getting in-depth understanding of community practices that affect women’s empowerment, purposive sampling technique was employed to select study participants. Totally fifty individuals were participated to provide the data for this research. In-depth interview and focus group discussion was also used to collect the data. The researcher documented and analyzed actual case studies, which enabled the researcher to identify the impacts of socio-cultural practices on women’s empowerment, the society’s perception towards women role and factors affect women decision making in household and community level. The data was analyzed in thematically organized way by pursuing to the original descriptions of the field notes so as to infer meanings and generalizations. This finding reveals that our countries context is formally banned by the Ethiopian constitution which was promulgated in Ethiopian constitution (1995) Art 35, sub Art 4 the state shall enforce the right of women to eliminate the influence of harmful customs. Though, the community has been practicing female genital mutilation and early marriage because of low awareness and cultural reason like the belief that a non-mutilated girl breaks the utensils, possesses bad behavior and for the purpose of purity. Generally, there are several cultural practices in this study area and they have their own impact on women’s performance. Currently, these practices are prevailing among the community and the community gave their own positive and negative implications towards this practices. Particularly female genital mutilation and early marriage are the most common practice in my study area. Therefore, it needs governments’ considerable attention and other non-governmental organizations and policy-makers to reflect on the most suitable ways of supporting women empowerment.
Highlights
Empowerment can be seen as an important process in reaching gender equality, which is understood to mean that the "rights, responsibilities and opportunities of individuals will not depend on whether they are born male or female" [20]
The wolaita community take different measures to keep females silent and to influence their decision making power by recognizing males supremacy by the expense of females to prove this reality currently, female genital mutilation (FGM) is one of harmful traditional practice deep-rooted in the area and violate women’s right
Among wolaita community there are several cultural practices associated to the status of women, such as polygamy, abduction, early marriage and female genital mutilation
Summary
Empowerment can be seen as an important process in reaching gender equality, which is understood to mean that the "rights, responsibilities and opportunities of individuals will not depend on whether they are born male or female" [20]. In Millennium Development Goal Gender equality and the empowerment of women placed high on the development agenda to promote gender equality [66]. The Millennium Declaration added that the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women in addition to being a goal in itself is a means for further development goals to eliminate poverty, hunger and diseases [67]. This signals that women empowerment has paramount role in the development plans of a country. Women’s socio- cultural empowerment cannot be complete without their equitable participation in family matters. Women have special role to play in the family decisions. Women have special role to play in the family decisions. (Ibid)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
