Assessing the impact of affirmative action on women empowerment in Madi community

Abstract

The study assessed the impact of affirmative action on women’s empowerment in Madi community of Pakele Sub County, Adjumani District. The research was triggered by the fact that amongst the Madi community, men holds primary power; predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property which has weakened women’s economic status and forced them to depend entirely on their husbands for survival and exposed them to domestic violence. The research design employed both quantitative and qualitative research approaches.The specific objectives of the study were;to establish the different forms of affirmative action in Madi community; to analyze the impacts of the different forms of affirmative action in relation to women’s empowerment in Madi community, and to find out the challenges faced in implementing the different forms of affirmative action in Madi community. The key findings were that: equal representation by women in leadership positions and opportunity for girl child education were the most common and popular forms of affirmative action among the Madi community of Pakele; affirmative action empowers mainly the educated women in Madi community and themajor challenges of the implementation of affirmative action in Madi community were; denial in decision making, persistent cultural practices and beliefs, illiteracy and poverty. The other challenges such as domestic violence, lack of resources ownership and unemployment are other forms of challenges faced in implementing affirmative action in Madi community. The conclusion of the study were that the most common forms of affirmative action among Madi community were equal representation by women in leadership positions and opportunity for girl child education; affirmative action empowers mainly the educated women; and the major challenges of affirmative action were denial in decision making, persistent cultural practices and beliefs, illiteracy and poverty. The policy recommendations were that: Government of Uganda should sensitize community on property rights and women’s powers to make critical social decisions;conduct comprehensive community sensitization and wider advocacy on women’s issues; and scale up adult literacy education among rural communities to raise their consciousness and critical thinking in order to remove negative cultural perceptions or gender stereotypes, emotions of fear and insecurity.