(photo: traffic in Johannesburg)
Apartheid worked on a model of strict population control for increased economic gains. Removing millions to overcrowded townships and Bantustans far from city centers developed a system of forced migrant labor. Both men and women had to leave these areas to find any economic stability for their families.
It has been estimated that one third of the adult male population in the Bantustans is absent at any one time, contributing to the low level of farming. Many women are also forced to seek work elsewhere to support their families. In general they are excluded from seeking work on the industrial areas of South Africa and the majority work as domestics or in agriculture (32).
The migration of Black populations to find work had adverse effects on the health of individuals, families, as well as communities. The movements of people from rural to urban areas became entrenched in the economic system where state interventions actively controlled and mobilized labor migrations (33). In 1990, a study in KwaZulu-Natal province found that men who were migrant workers in the mines had twice the HIV rates as non-migrant workers, while women who attended prenatal clinics in the province had twice the national level of HIV infection (34).
During the period of 1993-1999, there was a significant increase in migrant labor. This can be explained by the ending of apartheid laws creating an increased mobility of populations of workers. In 1993, 32.6% of rural Black Africans were migrant laborers (35). In 1999, almost 40% of rural Black Africans were migrant laborer and 34% of all these migrant workers were women (36). This period also marked the ending of apartheid laws, the first democratic elections in South Africa as well as the doubling of HIV prevalence rates (37). Recent studies have shown that labor migration patterns did not change with the ending of apartheid, but rather increased. A 2003 study concluded that,
Migration continues to play an important role in the spread of HIV-1 in South Africa. The direction of spread of the epidemic is not only from returning migrant men to their rural partners, but also from women to their migrant partners. Prevention efforts will need to target both migrant men and women who remain at home (38).
Professor Lurie and researchers from Brown University, Harvard Medical School and Imperial College London used data collected from nearly 500 men and women living in bustling towns and rural villages to create a mathematical model that shows that migration of South African workers played a major role in the spread of HIV mainly by increasing high-risk sexual behaviors. Very often young men would leave the rural Bantustans in order to earn a living in the urban areas and mines only returning home once a year. With the lifting of travel restrictions on Black South Africans after apartheid this “circular movement” increased (40). Professor Lurie said,
Our model showed that migration primarily influences HIV spread by increasing high-risk sexual behavior. Migrant men were four times as likely to have a casual sexual partner than non-migrant men. So, when coupled with an increase in unprotected sex, we found the frequent return of migrant workers to be an important risk factor for HIV (41).
Notes:
32. Seedat, Aziza. Crippling a Nation: Health in Apartheid South Africa, 18.
33. Posel, Dorrit. “Have migration patterns in post-apartheid South Africa changed?” 4-7 June 2003.
34. “HIV and other STDs. Chapter 3, Part 1” Population Reports. November 1996, 20.
35. Posel, Dorrit. “Have migration patterns in post-apartheid South Africa changed?” 4-7 June 2003, 3.
36. Ibid.
37. “HIV & AIDS in South Africa: The history of AIDS in South Africa.” Avert.
http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm
38. Lurie, Mark N; Williams, Brian G; Zuma, Khangelani; Mkaya-Mwamburi, David; Garnett, Geoff P; Sweat, Michael D; Gittelsohn, Joel; Karim, Salim SAbdool. AIDS:17 October 2003 – Volume 17 – Issue 15 – pp 2245-2252.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
Coming next: Scapegoating “tropical workers”
Alex B. Hill 