| JUNIMA is a joint initiative that promotes universal access for people on the move |
Beneficiaries
This Joint Initiative focuses on vulnerable mobile and migrant populations, including minorities. There is also a special focus on vulnerable women within the 10 ASEAN member countries and southern provinces of China. These groups are primarily economic migrants seeking alternative livelihoods and are often supporting many family members back in their home countries.
There are an estimated 12.6 million South East Asian migrants living and working abroad. Approximately 7.6 million of those migrants remain in the region in Southeast Asia’s main destination countries of Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam – with 3.8 million of these being undocumented. Undocumented migrants are in particular need of HIV prevention, testing and other information services.
There is a growing body of evidence that shows that in certain circumstances and living conditions, risk behaviour and HIV infection rates are considerably higher among migrants than among the general population. Under circumstances of exclusion, loneliness, exploitation, abuse, and other hardships which migrant workers are usually confronted with, transactional sex, sex for survival, rape, or commercial sex may take place increasing the risk of STI/HIV transmission, especially for women.
In Thailand, where more data exists, migrant fishermen showed much higher rates of risk behaviour, and HIV infection rates as high as 9%. HIV infection rates among sex workers in border areas and towns are consistently higher than in other locations, and rates of HIV among pregnant women testing at ANC clinics in Thailand showed a significantly higher rate among migrant women than among local Thais. In the Philippines and in Lao PDR one third of all the registered people living with HIV are (or were) migrant workers.