Paper short abstract:

The study presents the working and living conditions faced by female migrants who work as head porters in the commercial cities and how it affects their reproductive health.

Paper long abstract:

The study presents the working and living conditions that female migrants from the northern part of Ghana to the southern part of the country are going through in the urban and commercial cities in Ghana and how it impacts on their reproductive health. Female porters popularly known as "kayayei" are young girls, mostly in their reproductive ages who migrate from rural communities in the north to the commercial cities in the southern part of Ghana. During the last decade, out-migration of young girls to the commercial cities in Ghana to work as head porters has increased several fold creating streams of problems to both the migrants and the host population. In many ways the health implications on female porters have been overlooked, less explored and exacerbated by lack of policies to make the migration of female porters a healthy and socially productive process. The study focuses on the female porters who are working in the capital city of Ghana - Accra - without shelter and are exposed to rapists. The study finds that these porters usually trade in sex for shelter which exposes them to STDs including HIV/AIDS. The study also finds that knowledge about HIV among the respondents is very high yet they pay little attention to practising safe sex including the use of condom. In most cases, this results into unplanned pregnancies among many "kayayei", a majority of whom are unable to adequately cater for their babies and children.