T

he commemoration of World AIDS Day on Thursday might have been the worst day of Fajar Jasmin’s life.

It was the day that Fajar, a Jakarta resident living with HIV, received a text message informing him that his daughter had been denied entrance to Don Bosco elementary school in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, because her father was HIV positive.

“We received the SMS today at about 1 p.m.,” Fajar’s wife, Leonnie F Merinsca, told The Jakarta Post.

Fajar said the school had initially accepted Immi. “We received the school’s written statement.”

“We met with the school’s representatives to discuss about school donations and fees, during which I revealed to them that I was HIV positive. I did that because I did not want the school to discriminate against my daughter should my condition ever be found out. I did not demand any privileges for her, I just wanted equal treatment,” he added.

Following the meeting, the school proposed yet another meeting with Fajar and a representative of the foundation that owns the school.

The agenda of the meeting was supposed to be about tuition fees, and not Fajar’s health. But he was particularly baffled when he found out that the purpose of the meeting was to probe his daughter’s medical records.

“As it turned out, the foundation asked for my daughter’s medical test results. We [Fajar and his wife] were shocked because we knew that health test results were not part of the requirements the school had asked for from enrolling students,” he said.

Fajar said that while his daughter had never been diagnosed with HIV, medical records “are supposed to be confidential”. However, the foundation’s representatives said that a failure to show Immi’s health test results would risk her chances of being accepted as a student.

“My wife told them that they were being discriminative because they only asked for my daughter’s results. Why did they not apply the same policy to the other kids?” he added.

He said that the incident had enraged him, and that he intended to sue the school.

“I’m suing them. All compensation that I might receive will be donated to other HIV patients,” he said.

Don Bosco School’s representatives could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

HIV/AIDS activist Baby Jim Adytia said Fajar’s case was only the tip of the iceberg. She pointed out that if the parents of the children at the school were behind the school’s decision to request the daughter’s medical records, then it could be safe to conclude that we lived in a society devoid of empathy.

According to Health Ministry data, as of September, there were about 186,000 people in Indonesia living with HIV/AIDS, 87.7 percent of whom were aged 20–49 years old. Of the total number, 54.8 percent contracted the virus through heterosexual relationships, and 36.2 percent via injecting drug use.

A former warehouse staff-cum-activist from Bandung is a case in point. Jimmy, as he prefers to be called, said that he was asked to leave his job in 2004 when his company learned that he was HIV positive.

“I was sick and went to the doctor appointed by the company. I asked the doctor to keep my medical status confidential, but he refused to do so and informed the company that I was HIV positive,” Jimmy said.

What followed was a long period of illness, caused by toxoplasmosis. Once recovered, Jimmy was determined to start working again.

“But on my first day back at work, I was told by the boss that the company would not be held responsible — financially or otherwise — if I fell sick while at work. There was a written agreement that all my family members had to sign.”

“I hope that such unfair treatment will never happen again to anyone, regardless of his or her medical status,” he said.