Consequences of Female Migration for Families in Tanzania

This is a descriptive study of consequences of migration for families in areas of origin in Iringa region, Tanzania. The study involved interviews with ten families in Iringa and ten female migrants from Iringa working as domestic workers in Dar es Salaam. Families reported no improvements in financial status following their daughters’ migration. This observation challenges the popular view that the decision by a family member to migrate contributes to their household’s increased income and improved living standards. Whereas migration has not improved household income, it has negatively impacted on migrants’ families in rural areas. These impacts range from health, social to economic shortfalls evidenced in, for example, having to care for the HIV positive returning migrants and their fatherless children. Migrants’ failure to improve their families’ livelihoods is attributed to among other factors lack of terms of service attached to the recruitment and small salary paid to them. The study recommends formulation and effective implementation of policies to protect domestic workers rights.Keywords: Female migration, Iringa, migration-development, Tanzani

Public perception of drinking water safety in South Africa 2002-2009: a repeated cross-sectional study

Background: In low and middle income countries, public perceptions of drinking water safety are relevant to promotion of household water treatment and to household choices over drinking water sources. However, most studies of this topic have been crosssectional and not considered temporal variation in drinking water safety perceptions. Theobjective of this study is to explore trends in perceived drinking water safety in South Africa and its association with disease outbreaks, water supply and householdcharacteristics.Methods: This repeated cross-sectional study draws on General Household Surveys from 2002-2009, a series of annual nationally representative surveys of South African households, which include a question about perceived drinking water safety. Trends in responses to this question were examined from 2002-2009 in relation to reported choleracases. The relationship between perceived drinking water safety and organoleptic qualities of drinking water, supply characteristics, and socio-economic and demographichousehold characteristics was explored in 2002 and 2008 using hierarchical stepwise logistic regression.Results: The results suggest that perceived drinking water safety has remained relatively stable over time in South Africa, once the expansion of improved supplies is controlled for. A large cholera outbreak in 2000-02 had no apparent effect on public perception of drinking water safety in 2002. Perceived drinking water safety is primarily related to water taste, odour, and clarity rather than socio-economic or demographic characteristics.Conclusion: This suggest that household perceptions of drinking water safety in South Africa follow similar patterns to those observed in studies in developed countries. The stability over time in public perception of drinking water safety is particularly surprising,given the large cholera outbreak that took place at the start of this period