Womens empowerment in Ethiopia: new solutions to ancient problems.

Abstract

In Ethiopia women traditionally enjoy little independent decision making on most individual and family issues including the option to choose whether to give birth in a health facility or seek the assistance of a trained provider. Harmful traditional practices including female genital cutting early marriage and childbearing gender-based violence forced marriage wife inheritance and a high value for large families all impose huge negative impacts on womens Reproductive Health (RH). Today Ethiopia has the second largest population in sub-Sahara Africa and the average woman bears 5.4 children placing an insupportable burden on families communities and a country facing chronic food shortages and environmental degradation. High maternal and infant mortality rates are inevitable results. Since 2003 the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has leveraged its support to ongoing RH and Family Planning (FP) Pathfinder projects funded by USAID. Two such projects have focused specifically on the empowerment of women and girls in Ethiopia improving the social religious and economic climate for females to be able to shake off damaging Harmful Traditional Practices (HTPs) and begin assuming responsibility for and control of their reproductive lives. Focusing in the regions of Tigray Amhara Oromia and SNNRP where we have worked for many years Pathfinder has challenged traditions through trainings workshops public meetings dramas and long hours of collaboration with national regional and community leaders as well as financial contributions in the form of scholarships to keep girls in school. The beliefs and behaviors of community and religious leaders husbands and wives adolescent girls and boys have been examined and challenged in a spirit of understanding and respect for peoples traditions as well as a comparable respect for the power of knowledge to bring about changes in ideas and behavior. (excerpt)