Gender Mainstreaming in HIV and AIDS in the Transport Sector

Gender inequalities and HIV/AIDS are a major threat to the world of work. It affects the most productive segment of the labour force, reduces earnings, and imposes huge costs on enterprises in all sectors including the transport sectors through declining productivity, increasing labour costs and loss of skills and experience. They also threaten fundamental rights at work, particularly with respect to discrimination and stigmatisation aimed at workers and people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. The epidemic and its impact strike hardest at vulnerable groups including women and children, thereby increasing existing gender inequalities and vulnerabilities. Gender affects the world of work because people take their gender identities to work, while the workplace mirrors and sometimes exacerbates the gender inequalities and discrimination present in wider society, certain types of work or work situations may carry inherently high risk of HIV infection. Long periods away from spouses and partners such as the transport workers expose both men and women to HIV risk if other sexual partners are taken and sexual networks extended. One of the most important gaps that exist in the transport sector in Malawi is the need for more gender specific and gender sensitive policies and collective bargaining agreements. Programmes must consider the gender dimension, particularly given that the transport industry is a male dominated industry. Hence females on transport routes working as brew sellers, barmaids, commercial sex workers, partners at home and along the road are particularly vulnerable to the epidemic and requires a deliberate gender sensitive programming in the transport sector that will empower them to negotiate for safer sex; this will also be in line with the Malawi Decent Work Country Programme which is guided by the resolutions of the 2009 International Labour Conference (ILC) on gender equality at the heart of decent work, which the ILC clearly states that gender issues are to be considered when addressing the four strategic objectives of employment, social protection, rights at work and social dialogue that the ILO calls Decent Work Agenda.

Project symbol

MLW/13/02/FPA

Admin unit

CO-Lusaka

Start date

01/07/2013

End date

31/03/2014

Total allocation

71729

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

71707

Development Partners

United Nations Population Fund

Country/Countries

Malawi

Outcomes

HIV/AIDS