| dc.description.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. | en_US |
