World Journal of AIDS, 2013, 3, 305-312 Published Online December 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/wja) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/wja.2013.34039 Open Access WJA 305 HIV/AIDS Related Stigma among Male Labor Migrants in Nepal Sushma Dahal 1* , Paras Kumar Pokharel 2 , Birendra Kumar Yadav 2 1 Department of Public Health, Central Institute of Science and Technology Baneshwor, Kathmandu, Nepal; 2 School of Public Health & Community Medicine, BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal. Email: * sush.dahal@gmail.com Received August 22 nd , 2013; revised September 21 st , 2013; accepted September 26 th , 2013 Copyright © 2013 Sushma Dahal et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Labor migrants are those of the at-risk groups for HIV. This cross-sectional study has tried to examine HIV/AIDS-related stigma among Nepalese returnee male labor migrants. Migrant workers who have worked at least six months abroad were asked different questions related to sexual behavior, knowledge on HIV/AIDS & condom and HIV/AIDS-related stigma. Stigma was measured on a three-point rating scale as high, average and low stigma. About 58% of migrants had the view “I would rather not know if I have HIV” followed by “I don’t want to be friends with people living with HIV” (53.6% migrants) and “people with HIV are cursed” (35.5% migrants). High stigma was present among 15.5% of the total respondents with high proportion among those with higher age, lower education, rural residence, and no knowl- edge on Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) service. About a quarter of respondents were of the view that mi- grants infected with HIV while abroad should not be allowed to return Nepal. Some level of stigma on HIV/AIDS exists among male labor migrants in Nepal. Interventions aiming at reducing stigma should consider the factors like migrants’ age, education, place of residence and knowledge on VCT services. Keywords: HIV/AIDS; Labor Migrants; Nepal; Stigma; VCT 1. Introduction Migration is as an essential and inevitable component of the economic and social life of every state [1]. Nepalese government is promoting overseas employment opportu- nities for its citizens because of poor absorption of growing labor force in the country [2]. Political instabil- ity, especially since the onset of armed conflict has also increased the number of labor migrants [3]. Nepal today is well recognized as the country of origin for labor mi- grants mainly to the Gulf Cooperation Council and Ma- laysia. Most popular countries of destination include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Lebanon, Japan, Israel, Malaysia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirate [4]. Ministry of Labor and Transport management in Nepal estimates that at current there are 3 million Nepali people under foreign employment and approximately 900 mi- grant workers leave the country for overseas employment everyday [4]. Different factors like socio-cultural pat- terns of host country, economic transition of migrants, reduced availability and accessibility of health services and difficulty of host country health care system to cope with the tradition and practices of immigrants caused migrant population at increased risk of poor health and other conditions like HIV and STIs [5]. Among different Most At Risk Population (MARP) for HIV in Nepal [6], male labor migrants and the clients of FSW are the im- portant bridging population that transmits HIV from high risk group to the general population. According to Na- tional Centre for AIDS and STD Control [7] 2011 in Nepal, male labor migrants accounted for 27% of the total HIV infections [7]. However the data represent the migrants going to India. In Nepal there exist strong traditional norms and be- liefs related to sex and sexuality related topics [8]. These topics are rarely discussed in Nepalese families where sexual activities outside marriage are also not accepted [9]. In school curriculum though sex education has been included, adolescents in school get very little information about sex education, and the major reasons behind in- clude teachers’ lack of desire and skill to deliver the sen- * Corresponding author.