Women Empowerment and Its Contribution to Promoting Antenatal Service Delivery in Gulu District Case Study: Laroo Sub County

Abstract

For a genuine and sustainable development to occur, equality is paramount. It gives people equal opportunities to develop one’s self through the access to resources.

The study was about assessing the contribution of women empowerment in promoting antenatal service delivery. It looked at the extent to which level of educational attainment affects accessibility to antenatal services by women, the importance of information accessibility to women of reproductive age and as well as assessment of how women’s participation promote their access to antenatal services.

The researcher employed the use of both the quantitative and qualitative approaches for data collection and analysis. Purposive and convenience sampling was used to choose the suitable respondents, data collection methods and instruments used included the focus group discussion method, questionnaire, and interview: focus group discussion guide, and interview guide.

From the study, empowering women help them to gain more knowledge about antenatal services and to meet small but necessary medical expenses such as medical cards, drugs, among others and builds their self-esteem which enables them to make genuine decisions concerning antenatal care. However other factors such as poverty, domestic violence and prejudicial attitudes remain a barrier to women empowerment.

To address such issues, the researcher believes that the government and other stake holders should offer female scholarship program and enhance female education beyond secondary level and government policy is needed to increase media penetration amongst the masses with health care information at the fore front as well as strong legislation against domestic violence.

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