Women street traders falling through the cracks

Women street hawkers are falling through the cracks of HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, despite being one of the highest risk groups. Up to 40 percent of female street traders in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province are HIV-positive, researchers have found. According to a study by the Health Economics and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, most of the women live and work in poor areas, and lack basic health and welfare services and social protection. This situation exposed them to high levels of violence, abuse and rape, said HEARD researcher Sabrina Lee. Many women also turned to commercial sex work to supplement their incomes. "Certain aspects of the working environments of women street traders, such as working illegally and therefore at night, working at traffic intersections, truck stops and transport hubs," made them more susceptible to HIV/AIDS, said Lee. A number of women also used informal trading as a coping strategy to earn extra income when affected by the pandemic, she noted. The Ukuba Nesidindi clinic, situated in Warwick Junction, the heart of Durban's informal trade, offers voluntary counselling and testing services. Figures from the clinic showed that about 40 percent of female street traders in the city were HIV-positive - much higher than the national prevalence rate of 25 percent. But the estimated 40 percent should not be applied to all women street traders in South Africa, warned clinic manager Dudu Mofokeng - they were only an "indication". Nevertheless, Khoboso Nthunya, general manager of the Self-Employed Women's Union (SEWU), raised concerns that the figures could, in fact, be higher. Many of the women hawkers were illiterate, and lacked adequate knowledge about HIV/AIDS and how to protect themselves from the disease. Earlier this year Ukuba Nesidindi clinic ran a two-month AIDS training project to educate traders on the street. "Traders have to be educated at their stalls, while working, to minimise economic loss - they don't have time to attend workshops," explained Mofokeng. The clinic was also one of the few health facilities offering free day-care to the children of street traders, decreasing their exposure to HIV/AIDS, said Nthunya. "Generally, street traders' children play between the stalls on the street, where they are not safe. They are as exposed to abuse, rape, violence and crime, as their mothers." Hawkers were often denied access to treatment at public hospitals, where patients were required to provide a local residential address, and leaving their stalls to sit for hours in hospital waiting rooms incurred severe economic loss to traders, explained Mofokeng. "We need government-sponsored, mobile clinics," Durban Informal Trader Management Board president Emmanual Dlamini told PlusNews. Lee called for secure, allocated trading sites in properly planned and managed markets, where the women could trade legally. The women also required micro-finance and community-based micro-health insurance schemes, she noted. Although South Africa had progressive policies on hawkers, there was still insufficient dialogue between local government and trade unions, leaving hawkers with no sector-specific training and education.