IOM Mozambique is this week launching a series of radio programmes
focusing on HIV prevention along the Nacala transport corridor, one
of the major thoroughfares, which links the port of Nacala on the
northern Mozambican coast to Blantyre in Malawi.

The series – titled “Mukwaha n'Ekumi" meaning
"travel safe" in the local language – falls under the UN HIV
Joint Programme in Mozambique.

This initiative aims to increase awareness of health –
especially HIV – amongst mobile populations and host
communities along the corridor. It includes features on stigma and
discrimination, multiple partners and condom use.

The programmes will be aired over four weeks, and will encourage
listeners to phone-in to radio stations with comments or questions
for local medical staff and community leaders. It is hoped that the
programmes will create and open up dialogue about HIV prevention,
specifically with men as the main beneficiaries.

The radio programmes will be transmitted from community radios
along the corridor and will also be heard in barracas or mall local
drinking places where radio is one of the main means of
communication as well as in local train stations.

Improved road and rail infrastructure in Mozambique, including
the establishment of the Maputo, Beira and Nacala corridors is
rapidly expanding the transport sector and increasingly linking the
country with its neighbours. This has not only led to a boom in
truck traffic at border posts, but has also resulted in long
border-crossing delays where drivers can spend up to two days
waiting for documentation clearance.

This has led to a spike in transactional sex at the checkpoints,
and to the prevalence of multiple concurrent sexual partnerships,
which is one of the primary factors in the spread of HIV in
Mozambique, which has an 11.5 per cent national prevalence among
adults aged 15-49.

For more information, please contact:

Sharone Backers

IOM Mozambique

Tel: +258 21 310 779

E-mail: "mailto:sbackers@iom.int">sbackers@iom.int