Migrant workers in Sabah, East Malaysia: The importance of legislation and policy to uphold equity on sexual and reproductive health and rights

Sabah, located in Southeast Asia, hosts the highest number of non-Malaysian citizens (27.7%), predominantly the Indonesian and Filipino migrants in comparison to other states in Malaysia. Sabah has inadequate data on migrants' sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHRs). Various migrant-related policies and laws are present, but they do not offer full protection and rights to legal migrants in terms of their SRHRs. The aim of the laws and policies appears to be controlling the migrants from having any negative impact on the locals, rather than protecting migrants' health and rights. This affected their rights to marriage, having children, increase their vulnerabilities to labour trafficking and sexual abuse and access to health-care services. Female migrant workers and undocumented migrants form the most vulnerable subgroups of migrants. This narrative review highlights the status of SRHRs of migrants in Sabah and the migrant-related Malaysian laws and policies affecting their SRHRs.

"I am tired but if I don't try to have sex, my wife will think I've been fooling around in the city": work, migration, and sex among Vietnamese migrant laborers

Mostly operating from a risk and risk-reduction paradigm, existing research on migrants in Vietnam tends to conceptualize sex and risky sexual behaviors as isolated life domains. This study begins to develop a contextually rich understanding of migrants' sex lives by examining the relationships among sex, work, and the constant pendulum-like migrating movements of 23 Vietnamese married migrants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Using data from in-depth interviews, it was found that most participants had no sex in the city; this was followed by visits to the home village, where they had sex with their spouses as often as possible to make up for the "long drought" in the city. Within this sexual schema, sex came secondary, and even peripherally, to migrants' working lives; thus, exhaustion from work was cited by migrants as the overwhelming factor leading to their sexual problems. This study suggests that migrants' intimate lives are more strongly linked to their working lives than has previously been recognized, and that their sexual behaviors should be viewed in tandem with the hardships of their working lives.

Health problems of Nepalese migrants working in three Gulf countries

Background

Nepal is one of the largest suppliers of labour to countries where there is a demand for cheap and low skilled workers. In the recent years the Gulf countries have collectively become the main destinations for international migration. This paper aims to explore the health problems and accidents experienced by a sample of Nepalese migrant in three Gulf countries.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 408 Nepalese migrants who had at least one period of work experience of at least six months in any of three Gulf countries: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE). Face to face questionnaire interviews were conducted applying a convenience technique to select the study participants.

Results

Nepalese migrants in these Gulf countries were generally young men between 26-35 years of age. Unskilled construction jobs including labourer, scaffolder, plumber and carpenter were the most common jobs. Health problems were widespread and one quarter of study participants reported experiencing injuries or accidents at work within the last 12 months. The rates of health problems and accidents reported were very similar in the three countries. Only one third of the respondents were provided with insurance for health services by their employer. Lack of leave for illness, cost and fear of losing their job were the barriers to accessing health care services. The study found that construction and agricultural workers were more likely to experience accidents at their workplace and health problems than other workers.

Conclusion

The findings suggest important messages for the migration policy makers in Nepal. There is a lack of adequate information for the migrants making them aware of their health risks and rights in relation to health services in the destination countries and we suggest that the government of Nepal should be responsible for providing this information. Employers should provide orientation on possible health risks and appropriate training for preventive measures and all necessary access to health care services to all their workers.

Local understandings of, and responses to, HIV: rural-urban migrants in Tanzania

Migration is an important process of change for rural populations in developing countries. Migration is a primary cause of behaviour change-by their very act of migrating, migrants are different from those who do not migrate. The focus of the current study is male rural-urban migration in Tanzania and its interaction with sexual behaviour. The analysis presents results from a comparison with individual-level analyses of two populations, one (composed of recent rural-urban migrants) in an urban area and one made up of residents in a rural area. Detailed migration histories (n=96 rural-urban migrants) and in-depth interviews form the basis of the analysis. Three key research questions are addressed: How does the sexual behaviour of migrants differ from that of rural residents? How do HIV knowledge levels vary between rural-urban migrants and rural residents? What factors are associated with either intentions of behaviour change or reported behaviour? The results are counter-intuitive: rural-urban migrants-both married and unmarried-are not having sex in town. Despite limited understanding of the nature of HIV, the migrant population studied here regulates its behaviour in a way that reflects local understandings of the disease. This finding is important, not least because it challenges the view that HIV in sub-Saharan Africa is largely transmitted to rural areas by return migrants. Maasai rural-urban migrants in Tanzania-both married and unmarried-are not having sex in town. The policy and service provision implications of the results are explored.