Gender inequality and women’s economic rights in Uganda; case study: Gulu municipality

Abstract

This study examined the influence of gender inequality on women’s economic rights in Uganda using a case of Gulu municipality. It was driven by three specific objectives; (i) To establish the causes of gender inequality in Gulu municipality, (ii) To assess the effects of gender inequality on women’s’ economic rights in Gulu municipality and (iii) To establish sustainable strategies of addressing the effects of gender inequality on women’s economic rights in Gulu municipality. The study applied a qualitative research approach which accorded the researcher an opportunity to interact with the respondents deeply and understand their feelings and personal experience about the study topic. The methodology involved use of interview, Focus Group Discussion, and Observation guides to collect data. The sample size was 55 respondents. Since the study followed a qualitative approach and methods, thematic content analysis method was used to analyse qualitative data. The study findings indicates that gender inequality is caused by the weakness exercised by government and stake-holders in handling gender inequality issues, illiteracy, early marriages, primitive religious gospels, marital unfaithfulness and lack of trust among the couples and negative attitudes on women’s involvement in economic agendas. The effects of gender inequality on women’s’ economic rights included domestic violence with noticeable deaths/killings, violation and abuse of human rights, under-utilization of human resources in the family and community at large, cyclic poverty, high level of school dropout, early marriages, reduced economic productivity, unbalanced decision making on gender equity, feelings of incompetence among women which affects their performance especially in public formal sectors due to low self-esteem and adaptation of anti-social behaviors for both men and women. Last of the findings were the sustainable strategies of addressing the effects of gender inequality on women’s economic rights which included self-empowerment among women, economic development empowerment and training by government and partner NGOs, promotion of economic development programmes such as the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP), promotion of girl child education, promotion of social values right from family to communal level, giving equal roles and responsibilities to both boys and girls at home and lastly is local leadership intervention which is trying to reduce the effects of gender inequality on the economic rights of women. From the findings therefore, the study discovers a lot of new knowledge in relation to the topic of study. The study discovered that there is limited effort from the government and other stakeholders ‘put forward to address the problem of economic inequality in Gulu Municipality and entire Uganda. It was discovered that there are few scholarly works on sustainable strategies to address the effects of gender inequality on women’s economic rights. For this reason, the study recommends that the government should put more emphasis on effective implementation of existing frameworks and policies regarding the economic rights of both men and women to ensure that they are equitably enjoyed. These policy frameworks should be streamlined basing on gender equity aspects for purposes of satisfying the interests and needs of both men and women equally. The study further recommends that more capacity building and empowerment be done to change human attitudes against gender inequality and adopt better ways of healthy working with each other irrespective of gender roles and responsibilities.