Reproductive rights and women autonomy: A study of rural women in Punjab

Page: 445-449

Ritu Bala and Balwinder Kaur Lamba (Department of Social Work, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)

Reproductive rights are a subcategory of human rights with the main aim of providing better autonomy to the parents with regards to the number and the spacing of their children. The issues of reproductive rights have been in controversy since long. India being a patriarchal society has various limitations especially with the issues like autonomy of women, maternal health, etc. However, reproductive health aspects have evolved with sexual health aspects of women over last two decades. The present study has been designed to study women’s autonomy regard to reproductive rights in rural areas of Punjab and has been carried out in district Patiala. District Patiala is divided into ten health blocks- four health blocks are urban and six health blocks are rural. As the present study deals with rural women so sample was collected from rural health blocks only. Multi-stage sampling method was used to draw the sample. In all, thirty villages were covered under the study. In the second stage of the sampling, ten pregnant women from each selected village were chosen purposively to meet the objectives of the study making the sample size of 300 pregnant women. Tool used for collecting data was self designed interview schedule. The findings of the study highlight lack of autonomy in utilizing reproductive rights among rural women of Punjab.