A group of international associations and organizations are aiming to lessen the vulnerability to HIV among more than one million seafarers around the world by joining together in a global partnership.

The Global Partnership on HIV and Mobile Workers in the Maritime Sector which brings together IOM, the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), the International Committee on Seafarers' Welfare (ICSW), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Maritime Health Association (IMHA), the International Shipping Federation (ISF) and UNAIDS will be launched at the 10th International Symposium on Maritime Health that opens on 23 September in Goa, India.

The partners will work to change HIV risk behaviour among seafarers, increase their access to health and HIV programmes and services during voyages, ensure that seafarers' rights are ensured especially with regard to voluntary HIV testing and counselling and to develop and implement sound workplace polices and programmes addressing the issue.

Members of the partnership hope that by working together, their global reach and experience will have a sustainable impact, particularly in changing high risk sexual behaviour of seafarers and the communities they interact with. Evidence from various national and regional level studies shows that seafarers as an occupational group have high rates of HIV infection compared to the population in their community of origin.

Research also suggests that seafarers have lower levels of knowledge about HIV transmission and risk factors than the general population. At the same time, seafarers appear less likely than other occupational groups to voluntarily receive HIV testing, and more likely to engage in high risk behaviours. In one survey, 53% of participants reported contacts with commercial sex workers and 73% reported that they never used condoms.

Whilst the particular working conditions of seafarers –almost exclusively men of sexually active age who are away from their spouses or partners for extended periods of time, who frequent port areas where there are often large numbers of commercial sex workers and who face isolation and hardship in strange surroundings – encourage high risk behaviour, these working conditions also make it harder for seafarers to access information about HIV. Seafarers are a highly mobile population, who attend shore-based medical and information services infrequently, and who are often prevented from receiving HIV messages through lack of time, ability to understand the ‘local' language or because of stigma and discrimination.

For further information, please contact:

Davide Mosca
IOM Geneva
Tel: + 41 22 717 9358
E-mail: dmosca@iom.int