On unstable ground: gendered vulnerabilities and community perceptions of landslides in rural Uganda

Despite a growing body of literature linking transnational sex and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among women across Sub-Saharan Africa, knowledge gaps remain regarding the environmental or climate-related drivers of these phenomena. This study is the first to examine potential links between landslides, survival sex, and women's reproductive health. It does so by drawing on interviews with community members that focus on understanding the response strategies frequently undertaken by women in Bududa, Uganda, a rural, disaster-prone district. The interviews reveal that community members perceive women to be especially vulnerable after a landslide owing to their gendered roles and positions. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of the interviews established explicit connections between landslides, transactional sex, and consequences like HIV. This research provides a nuanced investigation of how survival sex is associated with gendered expectations and inequalities that become intensified in the wake of devastating events like landslides. The interviews exposed key mechanisms surrounding these relationships, including hunger, homelessness, and violence.