Migration and HIV risks: women from Central Asia in the Russian Federation

Abstract

A growing body of cross-national scholarship has been exploring the interconnections between migration and HIV infection. While often demonstrating elevated HIV risks among migrants, this scholarship has also suggested that such risks are gendered. This article uses survey and in-depth interview data to examine HIV-related risks and attitudes among working migrant women from three Central Asian countries—Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—and their native counterparts in three Russian cities. The analyses focus on exposure to risky sexual relationships, negotiation of safer sexual practices in permanent partnerships, experience of HIV testing and utilization of sexual and reproductive health care services, comparing natives and migrants as well as women of different provenance within the migrant subgroup. The results suggest that while migrant women are generally less likely to engage in risky behavior, they are also less able to negotiate safer sex within their permanent partnerships compared to native women. Migrants are also less likely to take HIV tests and to access sexual and reproductive health care. At the same time, the analyses reveal considerable variations among the three provenance groups of migrants in some of these outcomes, which call for further investigation.