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team of foreign experts has found that a number of local ordinances are hampering the nation’s efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The team, consisting of 26 experts from Indonesia and overseas, assessed the adequacy of the health sector’s response to the spread of HIV, which has infected 191,073 people from 2005 until 2015, with 13,449 lives lost. During the assessment, they discovered a number of regional bylaws that were discriminatory toward people living with HIV/AIDS (ODHA).

“You have in West Java, a bylaw that criminalizes HIV transmission from a husband to his wife,” the team leader, Daniel Tarantola, told The Jakarta Post.

According to West Java Bylaw No. 12/2012 on HIV/AIDS prevention and management, ODHA are forbidden from infecting their partners or other people. Violating the law could lead to three months’ imprisonment and fines of Rp 50 million (US$3,750).

In Depok, ODHA that die are unable to receive death benefits.

“Those ordinances are enacted without any consideration of how to implement the law in a fair fashion and in line with the Constitution,” Tarantola said.

Instead of encouraging people to stay away from behaviors that put them at risk of contracting HIV, he said, these bylaws actually discourage ODHA from seeking proper treatment as they are afraid of being criminalized.

“It’s not by pushing people away from services that you can really stop HIV,” said Tarantola, who has worked in HIV and other public health programs in 120 countries. “According to the Constitution, every man and woman is equal and has the same rights. Unless you let these people fulfill and enjoy their rights, they will stay away from services [related to HIV].”

These discriminatory bylaws exist in a society where stigma and discrimination against ODHA and people at risk of contracting HIV, such as the LGBT community and sex workers, are running strong.

Even HIV-positive children are not immune from discrimination. In 2015, nine HIV-positive children in Surakarta, Central Java, were on the verge of becoming homeless after residents in two neighboring districts refused to allow a local NGO to rent a house in their respective neighborhoods to shelter and take care of the children.

“Stigma and discrimination are probably the biggest barriers in controlling HIV/AIDS,” Tarantola said, adding that Indonesia was facing an HIV/AIDS epidemic.

According to an 2014 United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS gap report, the number of AIDS-related deaths in Asia and the Pacific fell by 37 percent between 2005 and 2013, with countries such as Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar posting hefty declines of 72 percent, 56 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

However, the number of AIDS-related deaths in Indonesia actually increased by 427 percent during that same period.

Tarantola said the discriminatory local ordinances were at odds with Indonesia’s stance on human rights.

“Indonesia has subscribed to a number of international human rights treaties. At the same time, the same state is letting inappropriate laws be implemented at the provincial level or below, that do not conform to international human rights convention,” he said.

Therefore, he urged the government to take steps to reform national and sub-national policies and practices that hinder the effective implementation of HIV response, such as documenting the impact of both enabling laws and legal barriers to an effective HIV response.

“From HIV perspective, unless the government addresses this issue and streamline its policies and laws in a way that they are consistent with the state’s obligation towards international convention, there will be no way to stop HIV,” said Tarantola.

The Health Ministry’s director general for disease control, Muhammad Subuh, said the ministry would review the bylaws as Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek had instructed her subordinates to follow up on all recommendations made by the team.

“We will dissect all regional bylaws related to HIV, especially in West Java. If there are bylaws that create stigma and discrimination, we will coordinate with the Home Ministry so that they can directly get involved in dealing with the matter, such as by revoking the bylaws and so on,” Subuh told the Post.