There is a crucial need to avoid prioritizing vertical disease-specific services and to promote access to rights-based SRH services for migrant sex workers in both home and destination settings.

BackgroundMigrant women engaged in precarious employment, such as sex work, frequently face pronounced social isolation alongside other barriers to health and human rights. Although peer support has been identified as a critical HIV and violence prevention intervention for sex workers, little is known about access to peer support or its role in shaping health and social outcomes for migrant sex workers. This article analyses the role of peer support in shaping vulnerability and resilience related to HIV/STI prevention and violence among international migrant sex workers at the Mexico-Guatemala border.MethodsThis qualitative study is based on 31 semi-structured interviews conducted with international migrant sex workers in the Mexico-Guatemala border communities of Tapachula, Mexico and Tecún Umán and Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.ResultsPeer support was found to be critical for reducing social isolation; improving access to HIV/STI knowledge, prevention and resources; and mitigating workplace violence, particularly at the initial stages of migration and sex work. Peer support was especially critical for countering social isolation, and peers represented a valuable source of HIV/STI prevention knowledge and resources (e.g., condoms), as well as essential safety supports in the workplace. However, challenges to accessing peer support were noted, including difficulties establishing long-lasting relationships and other forms of social participation due to frequent mobility, as well as tensions among peers within some work environments. Variations in access to peer support related to country of work, work environment, sex work and migration stage, and sex work experience were also identified.ConclusionsResults indicate that peer-led and community empowerment interventions represent a promising strategy for promoting the health, safety and human rights of migrant sex workers. Tailored community empowerment interventions addressing the unique migration-related contexts and challenges faced by migrant sex workers should be a focus of future community-based research, alongside promotion of broader structural changes.

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En este estudio se entrevistó a siete mujeres y doce hombres con virus de inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH) en situación de pobreza, en la región del Soconusco, estado de Chiapas. Se analizaron las estrategias familiares que utilizan para cubrir sus necesidades materiales. Pese a que el estigma asociado al VIH y Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Humana (SIDA) está presente en su vida, se encontró que la familia extensa —padres, hijos, abuelos, tíos, nietos— de aquellas personas, después de un proceso de readaptación al grupo, juega un papel importante para satisfacer las necesidades de alimentación, transporte y vivienda.

Drawing on qualitative research carried out in 2018 at two crossing points at the Guatemala-Mexico border, I focus my attention on individuals enabling movement and border crossing. These include money changers (cambistas or cambiadores), so-called tricyclists (tricilceros, people whose activity facilitates the transport of merchandise), motorcycle taxi drivers (locally called tuk tuks), rafters (balseros o camareros, in charge of the rafts that cross the border river), and, in general, people directly linked to movements in the region and across the border. Local actors like them, often overlooked, are the cogs that allow one side of the border to be connected to the other. Mobility and this specific space are affected by their imprint, their actions, and by the way they relate to their environment. Their aim is to be able to remain and protect their livelihood; in order to be able to not move, they allow movement across the border, shaping mobility, and also immobility, in the borderland. They are key actors in the construction of the border dynamic, mobility, and the space surrounding the line that divides both countries geopolitically. Although they play a role in the construction of (im)mobility of this space, they are subjects whose lives, destinies, and opportunities are intimately linked to the interactions and dynamics that take place there.

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The goal of this paper is to determine the association between traveling to engage in sex work in another country and recent access to HIV testing among substance-using female sex workers (FSWs) in the Mexico–Guatemala border region. From 2012 to 2015, through modified time-location sampling and peer referral, 255 FSWs were recruited at Mexico’s southern border. Participants completed questionnaires on sociodemographics, migration and mobility experiences, work environment factors, and substance use. A conceptual framework, as depicted by a directed acyclic graph (DAG), guided our analysis. Crude and adjusted logistic regression models were used to evaluate the relationships between mobility experiences and HIV testing in the past year. Overall HIV testing was low (41%); after considering relevant covariates (i.e., interaction with health services and organizations, and sex work characteristics) traveling to engage in sex work in another country was found to be positively associated with HIV testing in the past year. Future efforts need to consider voluntary and non-stigmatizing prevention HIV services and focus on reaching out to less mobile women.