Indonesia's Fastest Growing HIV Demographic? Housewives

According to the Surabaya Aids Prevention Commission, which monitors the spread of HIV in Indonesia, housewives in parts of Indonesia now outnumber prostitutes for new cases of HIV. The Bernama news outlet reports that 60 percent of new HIV cases in Bogor, West Java, are housewives, while HIV among sex workers is leveling out. The commission encourages all pregnant women to get tested for HIV; however, the Jakarta Globe reports that less than 1 in 10 consent to testing, adding that those who do test positive blame their husbands. The commission sees husbands who travel across provinces for work and spend long periods away from home as the top offenders. The HIV-positive women feel that their own communities will not support them even if they became HIV-positive by an unfaithful husband, as Indonesia's newspapers still tout headlines about HIV-positive couples being run out of villages and children being expelled from schools because they have HIV-positive fathers.

Back to other news for December 2012