Fear of sexually transmitted infections among women with male migrant partners – relationship to oscillatory migration pattern and risk-avoidance behaviour

摘要

BACKGROUND: In South Africa, former apartheid lawsencouraged rural males seeking employment to migrate tourban areas, moving weekly, monthly or annually betweentheir rural families and urban workplaces. The combinationof the migrant labour system and long family separationscaused an explosion of serious health consequences, amongothers sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the migrantpopulation.OBJECTIVE: To describe some correlates of male migrationpatterns for the rural women left behind, especially the fearof STIs that this engendered in them and their risk-avoidancebehaviour.Setting and subjects. In KwaZulu-Natal, 208 prenatal patientswho were partners of oscillating male migrant workers wereinterviewed to determine their demographic and behaviouralcharacteristics, and their fear of STIs.RESULTS: Thirty-six per cent of the rural women said that theywere afraid of contracting STIs from their returning migrantpartners. Women who saw their partners infrequently weremore fearful of STI transmission, and were less able to havesexual communication. However, almost none of the womenprotected themselves, while only 8% used condoms, primarilyfor contraceptive purposes.CONCLUSIONS: These results reflect the gender-based powerrelationships of South African male migrants and theirrural partners, the social and economic dependency of thewomen on their migrant partners, and the women’s socialresponsibility to bear children. The results point to the needto go beyond interventions that simply seek to modifybehaviour without altering the forces that promote risk takingand discourage risk reduction, and the need to developappropriate interventions to curb STIs and decrease HIV.