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But Wives Close their Eyes... By Marites Sison MANILA "God's will be done", is the prayer Esper (not her real name) utters each time she has sex with her husband, a seafarer from the Philippines who has been in the trade for the last 22 years. When he comes home for a two-to-three-month holiday after being away at sea for months, Esper is not sure whether it is safe to be intimate with him. At the back of her mind, she says, is the possibility that her husband may have contracted a sexually-transmitted disease (STD) or worse, HIV, from sexual relations in some overseas port. "I always remind him to please come home to me safe, but I have no way of knowing if he's been faithful to me," confesses the 43-year-old Esper, who works as a liaison officer for a marine recruitment agency. She once tried telling her husband to have a medical check-up, but he accused her of not trusting him. "So I just closed my eyes and prayed," she added. Studies have shown that seafarers -there are 500,000 registered Filipino seafarers, and one in every five seafarers in the world are Filipino- are among the migrant workers whose "girl-in-every-port" practice makes them, and their partners, vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS. "Faced with the daily risks of negotiating turbulent seas, sailing for days or weeks on end, and being in a typically male-dominated occupation, seafarers are known to indulge in social activities the moment they dock, including drinking binges and casual or paid sex," Riza Faith Ybanez says in a case study on the HIV vulnerability of wives of seafarers. "If seafarers are vulnerable to STDs and HIV, they can pass on such vulnerability to their partners," adds the study which was done for Kalayaan (Freedom) and CARAM-Asia, non-government groups that work with migrant labour. Currently, there are no reliable statistics on the number of seafarers and their wives with HIV. Most of those with HIV keep it to themselves, and rarely report to a government agency. Like Esper, Julie (not her real name) is aware that STDs and AIDS can come knocking on her and her husband's door at anytime. "I trust him," says Julie of her husband. "But I tell him that if you really cannot resist the temptation, please use a condom. If you can't stay away, just have oral sex." Julie does not realise that STDs can be transmitted even through oral sex. Julie says her "open and honest relationship" with her husband allows them to express their feelings without fear of rejection. But such openness is not the norm among the majority of seafarers' wives interviewed by Ybanez. Thirty-three women in her study say they fear contracting STDs and HIV from their seafarer-husbands, but most "still have not taken proactive, positive measures to protect themselves from their own vulnerabilities." Like Esper and Julie, those who manage to talk to their husbands, only give gentle reminders to engage in safe sex. Only a few insist on a medical examination before sexual contact. In an interview, Ybanez says many seamen's wives actually agree that they need to be more assertive with their husbands, but add that doing so is not easy. "They are economically dependent on their husbands, so there's a lot of gratitude for taking care of them. The husbands are only home for weeks so there's an attitude that if you nitpick, you'll just drive them away," Ybanez observes. "Also, Filipino wives in general are not assertive." Ybanez quotes the wives who have attended Kalayaan's education sessions as saying they cannot suddenly become assertive in sexual relations. "So they're sold to the idea, but it's a question of how to do it." Sexist norms in society have likewise created an imbalance in relationships. "We have a situation where on the one hand, the seafarers are exposed to sexual adventures abroad and come home with a new world view on sexual practices, while on the other hand, their wives remain sexually reserved back home," says Ybanez's study. To cope with the possibility of their husbands' extramarital relations, the study says, "the wives do confront their husbands or drop hints of their doubts, but always jokingly." Other women "fish for signs in their conversations," says Ybanez. Esper tells of a seafarer's wife who went through her husband's belongings in search of clues of possible affairs. Likewise, "there are wives who refuse to think about their husbands' sexual activities abroad," says Ybanez. Each time her husband leaves, Esper says, "I just think that he's single." Sometimes, it takes a first-hand example to make the wives accept the truth. Ybanez relates the time a sex worker, speaking at a session for seafarers' wives, told them pointblank that most of her customers are seamen. "So, the illusion is shattered," Ybanez explains. Still, others cling to the belief that their husbands are different. "It's really up to the person," Julie says of seafarers' sexual activities, though she says her husband told her that sex workers can be very aggressive and persistent. She says some captains have been known to take commissions from pimps who supply the officers and crew with women. She adds that her husband has been ridiculed and called a homosexual for refusing to engage in or pay for casual sex. At
the root of most seafarers' foray into the culture of casual sex
is the tolerance of male promiscuity. "They (the wives) say that they miss their husbands so much, that they are eager to sexually connect with them notwithstanding the risks. They say they think of the risks later, so STDs or HIV may be the price to pay for their happiness," Ybanez's study says. Using condoms was also not popular among women surveyed by the study - some said it was unnatural, others said volunteering their use was a sign of "guilt or mistrust." Esper says the "first and only one time" she used a condom was when her husband suggested using it. He had confessed to an indiscretion, was not sure if he was still safe, and later asked her to accompany him to a medical check-up. Fortunately for Esper and her husband, he only had a urinary tract infection. But she told him, "we can't just ignore this. The next time it could be worse." If her husband had indeed been infected with HIV, Esper says she would be heartbroken, but would still stand by him. "Who else will understand him?", she asks. |
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