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Bylaws ineffective at curbing infection, says observer

Jakarta Post - June 8, 2011

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung – The increasing number of bylaws on HIV/AIDS prevention in Indonesia is apparently ineffective at curbing the spread of the disease among society, an observer says.

Having reviewed 42 of the 47 bylaws on HIV/AIDS prevention issued by provincial administrations and legislatures across the country, Syaiful Harahap found that much of the content was in fact counterproductive to HIV/AIDS prevention due to ambiguous terms, confusing moral considerations and ineffective programs.

"The bylaws in Indonesia are all ineffective and empty. None of the articles address prevention and mitigation methods to prevent the rapid pace of infection in a concrete manner," Syaiful said, giving input on the HIV/AIDS prevention draft ordinance initiated by the West Java legislative council at the Gedung Sate gubernatorial office in Bandung on Monday.

He added that the HIV/AIDS prevention bylaw in Bekasi municipality, issued in 2009, stipulated that prevention efforts were aimed at preventing a person from becoming infected with HIV but did not clearly outline prevention methods such as campaigns on condom use and warnings against sharing needles.

He said the infusion of morality and religious norms resulted in biased implementation, which instead caused stigma and discrimination against infected people.

Many of the bylaws also reportedly failed to clearly identify brothels. That failure, he said, brought pitfalls to the campaigns as regarding condom use, which did not reach the targeted recipients because local administrations closed down red-light districts such as Kramat Tunggak in Jakarta and Saritem in Bandung.

The eradication of brothels has made it difficult to localize sex workers, he said.

The West Java AIDS Prevention Commission (KPA) secretary, Uche Sastradipoera, said that the input from the hearing would be crucial to efforts in revising the HIV/AIDS provincial draft bylaws. As of March this year, the KPA detected 5,709 people living with HIV/AIDS in West Java, 3,537 cases of HIV and 2,172 cases of AIDS infection.