Rural woman risk HIV for employment

A new study has found that rural South African women run the same risk of contracting HIV as men when seeking work in urban centres. The research conducted by the UK Department for International Development in the small mining town of Carltonville, southwest of Johannesburg, showed a 46 percent HIV infection rate among migrant women, compared to 35 percent among non-migrant women, and condom use was also lower among migrants. Co-author of the report Kangelani Zuma told the UN news service PlusNews: "Having multiple partners can be seen as a strategy for economic survival ... they arrive in the urban areas and are forced to have 'transactional sex' with a series of partners. Because many of these women arrive with very little, they find themselves powerless and unable to negotiate safe sex."