Excerpt from Study Description

The key factors linking HIV/AIDS and population mobility throughout the world, such as poverty, exploitation, separation from families and partners and from the socio-cultural norms that guide social conduct in stable communities, are particularly important in Southern Africa, where social and economic imbalances and political instability drive hundreds of thousands of people to migration each year.

This joint International Organization for Migration (IOM)- UNAIDS study, supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, outlines HIV/AIDS vulnerability factors, policies and programmes across eight Southern African countries concerning: military personnel; transport, mine, construction and agricultural workers; informal traders; domestic workers; refugees and IDPs. The study offers recommendations for action and policy for each group and lays out an agenda for advocacy.

Project manager, Barbara Rijks points out "the socio-economic conditions that lead to vulnerability are often overlooked. You have a [migrant] mine worker who does a nasty job and has bad accommodation with no privacy. His only recreation is to visit a sex worker ... He's not interested in safe sex because he doesn't believe he is cared for. [Employers] give little thought to anything beyond the immediate output of his work."

The study suggests youth-orientated prevention activities and strengthening of peer mediated programmes for farm workers. There is a bibliography of approximately 400 items on mobile populations and HIV/AIDS.

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