Studies on the social and cultural problems affecting thernhealth of women is rare in Ethiopia. This studyrnillustrates the common socio-cultural problemsrninfluencing the health of women and the women'srnperception towards health and illness in rural Butajira.rnQualitative and quantitative methods Â·,~ere employed torndevelop the data collection instrument and actualrncollection of data, respectively . A total of 675 randomlyrnselected rural women participated in the study . Over 94rnpercent of women are illiterate and only 8 . 7 percent ofrngirls are sent to school . The mean Â·",o r "'ing hour forrnrural women in Butajira is 15 hours. Very higl:rnproportion (96 . 6%-) women are victims of FGr'l. Therndecision making power of women at 3. house bold leveJ. isrn10.1 . vlomen have almos t no access to informatioD, atYJut 88rnpercent of them never listened to the radio for the lastrnsix months . About 97 percent of women reported trat theyrnare suffering from some kind of infectious ,- obstetrics orrnmental illness at the time of the survey . Punishmentrnfrom God, lack of nutritious food, exposure to cold, evilrneye and evil spirit possession were the major perceivedrncauses of illness. The participants mostly use herbalrnmedication during sickness or buy drugs with outrnconsulting health workers in response to illnesses. Theyrngive high regard to traditional healers, witchcraft andrnviirnreligious leaders to solve health problems . The women byrnlarge have no idea on how to promote health except t hatrnthey resume individual or group prayer . Therefore, itrnis concluded that women in rural Butajira are surroundedrnby traditional taboos and social problems affectingrnhealth .rnIn order to improve the situation of women the healthrnservice strategy needs to be devised after consideringrnwhat women believe, what they actually do and need.rnSuch strategies should be based on local problems and therninvolvement of locally accepted healers