Community Education Programmes for Awareness Creation on Reproductive Rights of Rural Women in Rivers State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Reproductive right is considered to be one of the fundamental rights which is peculiar to only women folk. Despite been a fundamental right, women are often abused and denied these rights. Community education programmes are used by various NGOs to promote awareness creation, and the question is what has been the impact of these pogrammes. It is against this backdrop that this study examined community education programmes for  awareness creation on reproductive rights of women in rural communities in Rivers State. Two research objectives and research questions guided this study. The study was anchored on the theory of reproductive justice. The research design adopted was the descriptive research design. The population of the study was eight thousand four hundred and twenty eight (8428) women drawn from community based women organisations from the six local government areas, the sample size was eight hundred and forty four (844) women drawn from community based women organisations from six local government areas in Rivers State. The instrument used for data collection was the questionnaire, it was validated using face and content validity and the reliability of the instrument was determined using the test retest method with a reliability index of 0.87. The data collected were analysed using the arithmetic mean. The study revealed that community radio, primary health centre, community based women organisations and women professional bodies were used to create awareness on reproductive rights for rural women while social media and religious bodies ranked low in been used to disseminate information and education on reproduction right. It was also found that rural women have low level of awareness on reproductive rights and education. Based on the findings it was recommended among others the need for intensification of advocacy programmes on reproductive rights of women on television using local languages.