W

omen are not only more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection, they also face greater risks of violence and discrimination when they become infected by the deadly virus.

The percentage of women living with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia has been rising steadily. In 1989, women made up only 2.5 percent of people in the country living with HIV/AIDS, but by 2009 the figure had jumped to 25.5 percent.

As of December 2009, data from the Health Ministry showed that of 3,525 women with HIV/AIDS, 1,970 were housewives, 604 female sexual workers and 366 regular employees. Other data showed that based on the infection mode, the highest percentage of infections occurred in the heterosexual activity category with 51.30 percent, while hypodermic needle drug users accounted for 39.60 percent, homosexual activity 3.1 percent and perinatal (the period immediately before and after birth) just 2.6 percent. Infection through heterosexual activity was recorded at below 50 percent in 2004, when perinatal infections were only 0.05 percent.

National Commission on HIV/AIDS Prevention secretary general Nafsiah Mboi said the figures indicated that women were most prone to being infected with HIV/AIDS by from their partners, and female teenagers usually had a four to six times higher infection rate compared to their male counterparts.

National Commission on Violence Against Women vice chairperson Desti Murdijana said that women were more at risk of HIV/AIDS exposure, and her commission found many cases of violence against women with HIV.

“Some of the cases of violence against women with HIV include sexual abuse, coerced abortion and marriage. There are also cases of sterilization for women with HIV,” she said.

Indonesian Association of HIV Positive Women (IPPI) national coordinator Sunarsih said the higher HIV/AIDS infection rate for females was caused by several factors, such as biology, society (a patriarchal culture) and economics (financial dependency of women).

“The lack of information on reproductive health and men’s power over women’s bodies has made women more vulnerable to HIV infection. Also, there is human rights abuse against women with HIV/AIDS, such as sterilizations carried out by doctors,” she said.

Sunarsih said that cities found with cases of sterilization included Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, Padang, Samarinda, Bali, Makassar, Manado and Papua.

“If HIV positive women receive the Antiretroviral [ARV] during pregnancy, it would reduce the possibility of mother-to-child transmission. It means more than 96 percent of [these] women were left to give birth to HIV positive babies,” she said.

Until 2009 the government had only facilitated 30 mother-to-child preventions integrated with antenatal care service, she added. “Also, only 165 women out of 1,306 HIV positive pregnant women were provided with ARV. We hope the government stops discrimination against HIV positive women,” said.