Fuente : International Organization for Migration (IOM)
http://www.iom.int/

IOM press briefing notes 24 Jun 2005: Ethiopia, Zambia

/noticias.info/ (through ReliefWeb.int)
Spokesperson: Jemini Pandya

ETHIOPIA - Study on link between HIV/AIDS and People Resettlement - Better integration policies and social services are needed for Ethiopians who resettle in other parts of the country in order to help reduce vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and violence against women and children, according to a new IOM baseline study.

The research, to discover whether resettlement of communities increases the risk of HIV/AIDS and gender vulnerability, was carried out on households in Oromiya and Southern Nations Nationalities and People (SNNP) states in the south of the country and Tigray and Amhara states in the north. The Ethiopian government is carrying out a voluntary resettlement programme involving hundreds of households in the four states with the aim of helping poor farmers to be self-sufficient food producers.

However, resettlement usually involves the temporary separation of families as family heads, mainly men, establish themselves in their new homes before bringing over their families. This resettlement programme allows the men to return to their areas of origin within two years if desired and many will exercise this right without ever bringing their families over in that period. Factors related to population mobility such as family separation, can increase the vulnerability to HIV.

There are an estimated 1.5 million adults and children with HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia according to UNAIDS, - a prevalence rate of 4.4%.

The baseline research, carried out by Miz-Hasab Research Centre on behalf of IOM, found some resettlers in Tigray and Amhara were at higher risk of exposure to HIV due to the large number of military and demobilised soldiers, cross-border traders and commercial sex workers in the states. In addition to an increase in divorce, the study also found an increase in underage and forced marriages in the region in order to protect young girls from rape that has exacerbated the gender context of HIV infection.

With little or no access to information and mass media in settlement areas, the study recommended the harnessing of HIV awareness campaigns to a community-based response as a more effective way to strengthen community knowledge of the disease.

The study was funded by the Canadian International Development Cooperation (CIDA).

For more information, please call Charles Kwenin, IOM Addis Ababa, Tel: + 251 1 504 028, Email ckwenin@iom.int or Leul Ayalew Tel: +251 1 519672, Email aleul@iom.int

ZAMBIA - IOM Assists Congolese Victims of Trafficking - The IOM office in Lusaka has provided return assistance to 12 Congolese minors who were being trafficked to South Africa.

The group, eight girls and four boys aged between 4 and 19 was travelling on forged documents and was intercepted in Chirundu on the Zambian-Zimbabwean border in early May by Zambian immigration officials.

A 28-year old female Congolese national was arrested and detained in Chirundi and later charged and found guilty of procuring forged documents for the group.

Children in the group told IOM that their families had told them they were going to South Africa "to meet an uncle".

The group was then transferred to Lusaka and placed in the safe custody of a partner NGO that provided the children with medical assistance and psychological support with the assistance of WHO.

Under IOM's Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme (SACTP) and in collaboration with the governments of Zambia and of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the children were repatriated by land to Lubumbashi where they were referred to a local NGO "Solidarite pour le Developpement Humain" and to UNICEF.

For more information please contact, Phelisteas Mwansa, IOM Lusaka, Tel- + 260-1-254055 / cell 97 740 661, Email Mwansa pmwansa@iom.int notas_de_prensa_archivo