Perceptions of Rural Women for Organizing Self-Help Groups as a Tool for Women Empowerment In District Sargodha, Pakistan

Abstract

The overall nation’s development intimately depends upon the development of rural economy. Rural poverty is a major socio-economic issue of many developing countries including Pakistan. Women empowerment can be a very effective way to reduce the poverty level of the country that can be improved through awareness and significant access to the basic human rights, education, and health, intra-community self-help groups. Recently, (SHGs) have reportedly been contributing significantly to women empowerment in several countries including Pakistan. The social and cultural obstacles in a classic society control all spheres of women’s life, where most of the women have no rights, to make decisions and communicate preferences about their education, jobs, family planning, health care and even marriages. Empowerment of women with the help of ‘‘self help group’s’’ activity has become a major strategy in many developing countries. It can enhance status equality of women as participants, decision-makers and beneficiaries in domestic, economic, social and cultural aspects of life. The present study has been designed to see the perceptions of rural women’s for organizing self help group as a tool for women empowerment in district Sargodha. Luck of sufficient research in the area led to information gap that hindered the promotion of the concept in the country. This research tried to fill this gap by providing additional knowledge about the contributions of SHGs in the process of empowering the poor women.The study was conducted in district and tehsil Sargodha, Punjab-Pakistan. All rural women’s in district Sargodha served as population for research study.