InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, April 14, 1998
Kafil Yamin

"He is not authorised to make such disclosures," Sudibyo Yuwono, head of the Central Java health office, said of the dismissed official, Muchtadi. Muchtadi, who like many Indonesians uses just one name, quoted results of two studies showing that Indonesian youth were increasingly having intimate and sexual relations with partners.

Some students visited prostitutes regularly and were often not too concerned about using protection, such as condoms, against AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, he added.

Far from being just a case of a bureaucrat overstepping lines of authority, Muchtadi's fate reflects a hesitance by Indonesian authorities to confront realities about the changing sexual behaviour of youth in what is seen as a conservative society.

This attitude, in turn, may well be a constraint in efforts to disseminate information about AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes the disease.

While mainly Muslim Indonesia is far from being an AIDS hot spot like Thailand or India, medical experts and anti-AIDS workers say it is wise for the country to invest early in education campaigns aimed at changing risky behaviour. A decade after the first AIDS case was reported in Indonesia, there are 153 officially reported cases of AIDS and 621 HIV- positive individuals.

In 1996 the World Health Organisation estimated HIV prevalence among adults aged 15 to 49 to be at 95,000 persons, or .088 percent of the population, far below Thailand's 2.3 percent or India's .514 percent.

But that does not mean Indonesia can be complacent, especially with changing sexual mores in a country fast becoming urbanised and exposed to overseas influences.

"They (officials) tend to cover up unpleasant things related to moral decadence in the community, but lack the efforts to deal with it," said Dan Satriana, coordinator of the information division of Sidikara Foundation.

The government has programmes like a National AIDS Commission that gives counselling, blood testing and information services. But information geared toward changing potentially high-risk behaviour among the general population, such as having multiple sex partners, is lacking, critics say.

So while fear of AIDS has risen, knowledge has not made as much headway, Satriana says. "The government tends to confine the dangers of HIV/AIDS only on homosexual practices and prostitution, so their messages would only be appeals to stay away prostitution."

This short-sighted tendency has roots in a tendency to associate the illness only with certain groups of people, a mistake that in other nations has led to growing HIV/AIDS cases not just among sex workers but housewives and infants. Indonesians should also heed the fact that the young are vulnerable to the illness, experts say. Official figures say the largest percentage of HIV-infected people in Indonesia, 96 percent, is found in people aged 15 to 49 years of age.

Sexual intercourse is the main mode of transmission of HIV, and 62.6 percent of cases were transmitted by heterosexual sex.

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, religious leaders say they recognise that social institutions have to join the fight against HIV/AIDS. In November 1995, ulamas or religious leaders from all over Indonesia met in Bandung, south- east of Jakarta, to outline joint action against AIDS.

They agreed, though, that condoms were not a solution to preventing the disease. "What we have to do is to eradicate out- of-marriage sex and prostitution all the way," said E Sukamana, an ulama of the Bandung-based Islam Union boarding school.

Sukamana says the school has intensified informal sex education through discussions. While the subject is not specifically on HIV/AIDS or sex, they dwell on "how to lead a life that is safe from sex-related diseases based on Islamic teaching".

But he conceded that warnings and religious lectures have to reckon, not easily, with unwelcome influences often brought in for instance by foreign pornographic films.

Others find this approach limited. To reach a wider and younger audience, the Sidikara foundation is using radio -- a medium more likely to reach more people and appeal to the youth. It has tied up with local radio stations to put out one-hour programmes on AIDS once a week, geared toward three age groups. Young listeners, mostly students, are among the most enthusiastic audiences.

"When I am on air, I should be ready to answer endless phone calls, asking various questions from what is a safe kiss, to judging good date partners," said Jamhur, a popular radio broadcaster.

Jamhur believes young Indonesians would not be as outspoken with their parents. "I think parents would be surprised to know that their offspring know a lot more things than they think," he said.

Parents think their children's knowledge and attitudes toward sex are no different from their own when they were in their teens. "So they think things can be dealt with the way they used to do," Jamhur added.

But beyond awareness, teens are not always easily prodded to change risky behaviour. "It is hard to see their willingness to do the right things in that matter (safe sex)," said one anti- AIDS volunteer.

Satrina says his foundation finds that holding discussions on sexual issues among student groups is more effective because "it is easier for them to get information from their friends than from teachers or parents". Some parents, however, protest that such NGO projects encourage youth to become sexually permissive.

Others view the suggestion to use condoms to ensure safe sex, as an endorsement of promiscuity. "Suggesting to people to use condoms means suggesting free sex.

We are supposed to prevent them from free sex," said one health official. Yet anti-AIDS workers say the information is the only way to make people change behaviour. Argued Satriana: "The fact is people are becoming more permissive.

And if you cannot ask people to avoid out-of-marriage sex, you'd better tell them how to do it in a safe manner." (END/IPS/AP-HD-PR/KY/JS/98)

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