The Picture that Emerged

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Contexto de página: Página principal > Revista 'Transporte Internacional' > Issue 1 June 2000 > AIDS and Africa: an issue for transport workers > The Picture that Emerged

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The picture that emerged from this exercise was of a group of workers who are socially marginalised because of the conditions in which they work. Long-distance drivers are stigmatised by the communities they drive through as “AIDS carriers”. They are harassed by the Ugandan authorities if their vehicles are poorly maintained, if they do not have the proper licences or the correct documentation and so on, even though they do not own the vehicles they drive. Extortion is said to be rife. Slow processing of documents at border points and local bureaucracy generally result in journeys taking far longer than they should. Drivers have few holidays since if they take time off they can lose their jobs. On average, 70 per cent of truckers interviewed had spent less than one week at home in the last four months, a factor which not surprisingly was resulting in family problems. Such long working hours, absences from home and lack of adequate rest facilities have contributed to drivers’ patterns of behaviour and increased their risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

Despite this marginalisation, the research found that the drivers were well informed about HIV/AIDS. Nearly all the drivers questioned in the field sample (99.25 per cent) had heard of AIDS, and 94 per cent of respondents had relatives, friends or colleagues who had been affected by it. The majority also knew that unprotected sex and unsterilised needles were key sources of transmission, and that condoms were an effective preventive measure.

However, although the drivers understood what activities made them vulnerable to the disease and they knew how to minimise the risks they faced, a significant proportion of them could not relate their personal actions or even their partners’ actions to HIV/AIDS. Thus, despite having multiple sexual partners, one third of drivers had never used a condom. Similarly, although 93 per cent said that they had made behavioural changes to avoid the risk of HIV transmission, the changes reported included maintaining existing relationships, reducing the number of sexual partners, or even believing that the behaviour of their partners had changed, rather than more effective or recommended types of behavioural change such as regular condom use or monogamy.

Among unionised railway workers interviewed by the research team the results were similar. All the workers contacted, either in the form of individual interviews or group discussions, were aware that multiple casual sexual relationships were a major risk factor in HIV transmission, yet they said that such activity continues.
The response of national and international agencies to the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa has been to focus resources on campaigns which provide information about HIV/AIDS and how to avoid it. While these initiatives have been effective in raising awareness, the failure of some transport workers to adopt new ways of behaving suggests that more is needed.

The evidence of the working conditions of truckers and railway workers suggests that marginalisation is a factor affecting their behaviour. The workers themselves agree. When questioned by the ITF’s research team both groups blamed their risk-taking activity on the nature and conditions of their work. The truck drivers in particular maintained that the daily insecurity, isolation and hostility they experienced encouraged them to respond counterproductively to the HIV/AIDS prevention message.

Studies conducted elsewhere in the world have reached similar conclusions, their findings supporting the proposition that social alienation encourages the rapid spread of HIV because those who feel separate from or even victimised by mainstream society are less likely to act responsibly in relation to it.

With this in mind, the message from the ITF’s research project is clear. While information and condom provision are essential tools in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS and they should be supported, on their own they are not enough. Changing the conditions under which those in the transport industry in sub-Saharan Africa are forced to work may, in the long term, be the key to changing their behaviour.

The research team’s report concludes that when the pilot project is put in to practice, while further education should be a priority, the effectiveness of any intervention depends upon improved working conditions. Addressing the right of transport workers to reduced periods away from home, better rest facilities, liaison desks at stopover points, and so on, will help to reintegrate them into their communities and so give them the freedom to choose and assume responsibility for their actions. The challenge facing trade unions in the region and the ITF is to use this information to devise an action programme which makes this possible.

The second phase of the project, translating the research findings into practice, is now underway. Activities include the use of trained peer educators to disseminate information to truck drivers and the communities they interact with, work with ITF affiliates in Uganda to help them develop a policy programme on HIV/AIDS and employment, and promotion of the research report to government officials, employers and organisations concerned with the spread of HIV/AIDS.

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UNAIDS
the website of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

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Issue 1 June 2000

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