Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This study examined condom use and intimacy among Tajik male migrants and their regular female partners in Moscow, Russia. This study included a survey of Tajik male labour migrants; and longitudinal ethnographic interviews with 30 of the surveyed male migrants and 30 of their regular female partners. Migrants believed that Muslim women were cleaner than Orthodox Christian women and reported using condoms more frequently with Orthodox Christian regular partners.
Regular partners reported determining intimacy based on the perceived commitment of the male migrant. When perceived commitment faced a crisis, intimacy declined, and regular partners renegotiated condom use. The association between intimacy and condom use suggests that HIV prevention programmes should aim to help male migrants and female regular partners to dissociate their approaches to condom use from their perceptions of intimacy.
Keywords: sexual risk behaviour, labour migration, regular partners, condom use, intimacy. An estimated 1. Most of these migrants were men between 18 and 45 years old and worked as seasonal labour migrants, staying in Moscow from early spring until late autumn.
There have been substantial increases in the number of people living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, nearly tripling since with estimates at nearly 1. Studies show that labour migrants to Russia may be at risk for HIV infection due to their risky sexual behaviour including unprotected sex with sex workers Amirkhanian et al.
Tajik migrants who become infected in Russia may act as a bridge for HIV transmission between Russia and Tajikistan, infecting their wives when they return home Golobof et al. Several studies of male migrants and their female regular partners have demonstrated that condom use is negatively correlated with intimacy between couples.
