T

he Papua AIDS Prevention Commission (KPAD) says it wants more men in Papua to be circumcised to help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in the province.

Commission chairman Constant Karma said a campaign to promote the importance of circumcision in curbing HIV/AIDS was urgently needed since the practice was not common for members of Papua’s Calvinist Christians.

“When the sect was spreading in Papua, it was taught that circumcision could be replaced with baptism. This is why many Papuans are uncircumcised,” Karma, also a Papua provincial secretary, told a forum of ministers at a seminar in Jayapura last week.

Circumcision can decrease HIV transmission through heterosexual intercourse by up to 60 percent, according to a meeting of medical experts in France in 2007, Karma said.

The meeting, he added, underlined the importance of including circumcision in HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns along with other methods such as voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), medication, safe sex campaigns, distribution of condoms and condom education programs.

“The recommendations from the World Health Organization and medical experts provided us with new facts [on how to stop HIV/AIDS],” Karma said.

According to the Papua KPAD, there were 6,303 cases of HIV/AIDS in the province: 3,093 cases of HIV and 3,210 of AIDS.

Karma also said that more spouses than sex workers had been infected by HIV in Papua since 2005.

About 20 percent of those reportedly infected in the province were housewives, while women sex workers comprised only 5 percent of the total number, according to Karma.

“This is a very concerning condition. HIV has spread within households. Priests have a duty to conduct pastoral visits and provide counseling to people on the dangers of HIV and on the present conditions that allow HIV to spread in Papua,” Karma said.

Separately, Rev. Sostenes Sumihe, a minister and lecturer at the I.S. Kijne Theological and Philosophical College in Jayapura, said the tradition of circumcision had been eliminated among local Protestant men and replaced by baptism.

Yet he said that both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible taught circumcision.

According to the Old Testament, he said, circumcision was an agreement between God and the Jews.

The New Testament, similarly, mentioned that Jesus was circumcised at the age of 12 while Paul and John were circumcised soon after birth 8th day, he added.

He also said that Christians should be circumcised for health reasons and to help prevent the spread of HIV.

“Doing so will not change their religious status and is not considered a sin,” he said.