Reproductive Trcat and Sexually Transmitted Infections: Preception and Treatment Seeking Behaviour of Female Migrants’in Indian Urban Slums

The RTIs/STIs and their complications are among the most important causes of illness and death for women (WHO, 2005). The morbidity from STI in women aged 15-45 years, ranks second only to maternal causes. Further, vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in general, and HIV/AIDS in particular, is the most widely studied topic in the field of migration, and health research. However, overwhelming importance is given to male migrants, truck drivers, or female sex workers in such studies. Very few have studied migration and women’s health issues. Therefore, the key issue is why and how female migrants become vulnerable to RTIs/STIs when they migrate to urban areas and how they treat their health problems, and which facilities they prefer to visit for their treatment. Thus the present paper tries to understand the perception and treatment seeking behaviour of female migrants for RTIs/STIs in slum setting. It also discusses about their access to health facilities and preference of health facility for specific problems. An attempt is made to test the hypotheses that female migrants with longer duration of stay have high access to health facility. The paper is based on quantitative data collected from 585 female migrants and few in-depth interviews conducted in eight densely populated slums of Mumbai, India.