Migration and migrant health care practices : the perspectives of women head porters in Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

This thesis seeks understanding of how gender, as a system of power, facilitates, constraints, determines, and impacts not only women’s migration but more significantly, women’s access to health services post-migration in contemporary Ghana. Drawing on the stories of women head porters, via the application of the principles of feminist standpoint theory, I explore women porters’ experiences as deeply embedded in social and power struggles that women did not create, but yet find binding on their lives. Women porters discuss financial struggles, negative encounters with health staff, and the hurdles of dealing with the power that men exert over their decisions and actions as barriers that limit their access and utilization of health services. They also speak of strategies they adopt to challenge the barriers. The findings of this study indicate that the broader social struggles that disempower women persist in contemporary Ghana. Practical, sustainable suggestions for change are offered.