Health Problems Faced by Female Farm Workers in Rural Areas of Tehsil Dera Ghazi Khan: A Sociological Investigation

Abstract

Women are the backbone of agricultural workforce in all over the world. Pakistani women play an important role in agricultural production. Women covers about 43% of the agricultural labor force generally, therefore women become the cause of development of the countries. But this segment is failing in many parts of the several countries because women, who are commonly an important resource in agriculture and the rural economy, face health problems that decrease their outputs. To find out the socio-economic characteristics of the farm working women as well as the health problems faced by them during on-going farm activities along with the factors which accelerate poor health of farm working women and to give some suggestions to maintain their health in working day, a sample of 160 farm workers females were selected through multistage sampling technique and were interviewed from the rural areas of Tehsil Dera Ghazi Khan. Univariate (frequency distribution and percentage) and Bivariate analysis (Chi-square and Gamma Statistics) was carried out. A great majority (90.6%) faced the health problems in last season. A huge majority (95.6%) of the respondents faced the problem of workload; (socio-economic stress) physical injuries/sickness (60.0%); mental diseases (95.7%); pesticides related health troubles (93.8%), and asthma (78.8%). Highly significant association was found between uses of pesticide vs health problem. Although most of the females were young, illiterate and working as tenants living with hand to mouth. They were working for economic support of their family so were in socio-economic and mental stress and were also facing physical and reproductive health problems. There is need of full awareness about taking of healthy diet for better health and decrease mental stress among the rural female farm workers. Trainings about health safety measures and nutrition education or medical system should be provided to them through health personnel and social reformers so that they perform their on-farm activities in better way and play positive role in agriculture sector for socio-economic up-lifting at domestic and national level.