Migrants and mobile populations are regarded as most at risk populations in relation to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and Tuberculosis (TB). Understanding such vulnerabilities is essential for the development of effective and efficient response strategies, as well as the implementation and monitoring and evaluation thereof.

A bulletin of news, information and analysis on migration health in Southern Africa.

Regional workshop on 4-6 November 2009 in Durban, South Africa 

This report illustrates activities of the Partnership on Health And Mobility in East and Southern Africa (PHAMESA) in 2014. 

Content: 

This SADC- funded project was a regional project involving primary research conducted at the ports of Beira, Dar es Salaam, Durban and Walvis Bay. This report is a synthesis of the findings of the research from the studies conducted at each port. Those findings are based on research conducted by four teams of researchers. Each team was selected in the country where they were to conduct the research. Their respective research was presented in four different reports. A workshop involving all the teams was conducted after each report had been drafted (in October 2014).

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in conjunction with the World Food Programme (WFP), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), North Star Foundation (NSF) and the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), organized a Regional Workshop on HIV in the Road Transport Sector for Southern Africa on 26-28 September, 2007 in Piggs Peak, Swaziland. The workshop’s specific objectives were outlined as follows:

In response to the health and HIV vulnerabilities of mine workers, their families and the communities with which they interact, IOM in partnership with Southern African Development Community (SADC) HIV/AIDS Unit, United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa (UNAIDS RSTESA), and TEBA Development (Regional Office), organised a Regional Workshop on HIV Responses for Mine Workers, Their Families and Affected Communities in Southern Africa, which took place in Mozambique, Maputo, on 27 and 28 May 2010.

This report is a consolidation of the findings from baseline assessments carried out by IOM’s PHAMSA Pilot Projects implementing partners in Lesotho and Mozambique (TEBA Development), Namibia (Walvis Bay Multi Purpose Centre), South Africa (Hoedspruit Training Trust), Swaziland (Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation) and Zambia (CHAMP and Global Development Alliance companies). It reviews the HIV-related knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and practices of labour migrants working in the fishing, commercial agriculture and mining sectors.

Content:

The review reveals that the law in all the SADC member states contains either expressly or implied provisions that guarantee migrants rights to health. While in some states, the law is more direct than others in its protection of migrant rights to health, it has emerged that an interpretation of the domestic law in consonance with the States’ international legal obligations accords migrants right to health.

CONTENT:

IOM in partnership with the Southern Africa Migration Project (SAMP) and in special collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) organised a Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa (MIDSA) on Promoting Health and Development: Migration Health in Southern Africa from 10 to 12 June 2009 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The MIDSA was hosted by the Government of Tanzania with the main objective being to work towards the implementation of the WHA 61.17 resolution ‘Health of Migrants’ within the SADC region. The specific objectives of the MIDSA were outlined as follows: