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| Home | As previously
mentioned, migration has become one of the most dominant ways that HIV
has spread around Africa. There are many cultural reasons why people
migrate in Africa. There seems to be a delineation between the reasons
for migrating and the division between the sexes. Part of the reason
the two sexes don’t migrate for the same reason is because there is a strong
expectation for specific gender roles in most African cultures. Rural-urban
migration, however, is more significant in influencing long term trends
in spatial distribution. The main reasons to migrate is the opportunity
for better jobs but also the availability of better health care, education
and housing (Oucho and Gould 264).
There is a strong connection between migration and sexual exploration because travel to new areas is a time of discovery and one of those types of discovery is sexual (Herdt 7). Urban society creates a context where the sexual culture has changed and there are new codes of behavior and different levels of acceptability (Herdt 3). Also, as migrants move away from home they seek new sexual partners to replace the ones that they left (Caldwell et al. 41). In addition, a new place means that there is no one there who can judge them or monitor their actions because no one feels it is individually their right to do that (Caldwell et al. 41). Obviously, increased sexual exploration and new partners are risk factors for contracting HIV, in particular because the women that the men who migrate have sex with are often prostitutes and those women are at the highest risk because of their high number of sexual partners. Men migrate for economic reasons because they are more likely to make money in the city. Because most HIV infection in Africa occurs during the young and productive years of life, and because research has demonstrated that male migrants tend to have multiple sex partners and frequent female sex workers, they are a population particularly vulnerable to HIV infection. (Pusateri 33). Some of the reasons males want commercial sex include that they are away from partners and feel they need sex, so they seek out someone from their own ethnic group because they are familiar or someone who is exotic because of the fantasy (Caldwell et al. 45). Rural migrants are more likely to be found in shanty towns or slums when they go to the city and these are the places were the sex workers have a higher rate of uncured STIs and a wider client base and also be HIV-positive (Caldwell et al 45). The legacy of colonization has also had an impact on sexual behavior as it used to be the custom that sexual relations occurred between relatives who lived nearby. The missionaries frowned on this practice and so men began traveling to fulfill their sexual appetites. (Caldwell et al. 42). Men’s jobs put them in a risky situation also. Long distance truck drivers are especially at a great risk because of their traveling but also their relative wealth (Caldwell et al. 46). The highest rates of HIV infection among commercial sex workers have been found around areas that focus on communication, education and commerce (Orubuloye 217). Other groups at risk include soldiers and police because of their relative autonomy over women and also their sense of male camaraderie that allows them to encourage each other to participate in unsafe acts such as rape (Caldwell et al. 47). Women’s migration is also for economic reasons. Women are increasingly migrating to the city as a way to escape rural drudgery (Schoepf 313). Women migrate to the city because of their schooling but once they got there they discover there are no jobs for educated women and so they turned to sex work so that they can save money for their return to home and avoid traditional work back home such as farming (Caldwell et al. 49). There are also “Some women who came to the cities hop[ing] to create new lives for themselves, free from rural patriarchy” (Sheldon 5). Commercial sex workers used to be widows or deserted wives but now they are more likely to also be single women just trying to survive even though, on average, these women have standard or above average education levels (Caldwell et al. 49). The typical sex worker makes more than a the earnings of a university graduate in a public sector job and their typical clients are married with white collar occupations (Orubuloye 220). Prostitution is part of a life stage with many of the girl planning to marry when they return home but few of them plan to tell their future husbands that they were once involved in commercial sex (Orubuloye 221). The sex workers had heard of AIDS but only in the past two or three years and they believed that it was something that effected white people only (Orubuloye 221-222). There is higher likelihood that a woman will migrate if there has been a slackening in gender-ascribed roles in her home area. Women's choices to migrate are also related to their life cycles. Unfortunately, despite the fact that women who migrate usually increase their economic status, they do not gain additional respect or status (Oucho and Gould 267). An additional problem is that women who have the symptoms of AIDS are now more often returning to their places of origin and that means that the people in the city never see someone with symptoms and so think that they are immune to the disease (Caldwell et al. 45-6). |
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