The Role of High-Risk Occupations in the Spread of AIDS: Truck Drivers and Itinerant Market Women in Nigeria

Abstract

Financial resources HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are disseminated throughout Nigeria via the countrys highly developed deeply-rooted commercial-sexual-trucking transport system. Long-distance truck drivers may generally range from 20 to 60 years of age and tend to be on the road an average 9 days and 8 nights per excursion. These men require both food and shelter for the duration of their travels. Accordingly lorry parks and roadside stops have developed to meet their needs. At these sites men both approach and are approached by young women who may generally average between 15-22 years of age. Of issue are the purchase of womens material and sexual wares by the relatively high-wage earning drivers. While long-distance drivers may have an average annual income of US$1500 market girls/women may net only US$50 annually from selling their foodstuffs and assorted commodities. Drivers and their passengers supplement females incomes in return for sex companionship and below-market food and accommodation. Driver-woman relationships may be semipermanent/polygynous infrequent and commercial or a combination of the 2. Either way these relationships reduce the cost and loneliness of longterm road travel and provide needed income to both market women and interior regions of the country. Drivers wives and drivers other sex partners may generally be aware of HIV and other STDs yet relatively few opt to employ condoms. The present network therefore serves as a major route of both disease transmission and income distribution. It is this latter function of the system combined with the systems entrenchment within Nigerias cultural fabric which will most significantly threaten the viability and effectiveness of interventions to prevent or reduce the spread of STDs in the country. Based on surveys and interviews this paper reports on system dynamics among long-distance haulage drivers and itinerant female hawkers in lorry parks and truck and bus stops in Ibadan.