In the middle of a Heroes Cemetery in Surakarta, Central Java, there is a home. Sometimes even taxi drivers do not want to go there. That is not only because it is in the middle of a quiet cemetery, but also because it is the residence of 32 children of the Lentera Foundation, a community-based organization for orphan children living with HIV/AIDS.

Puger Mulyono, the founder of the foundation, said that for the children, it was their fourth house as people kept casting them out once they know they had HIV. Finally, with the help of local agencies and private institutions, they finally can “hopefully” have a permanent home.

“Now, there are no demonstrations anymore because we live in a cemetery. […] But I’m grateful they evicted us because now we get much help and we have a home,” Puger said on Sunday in an event held by Dharmendra Kumar Tyagi (DKT) Indonesia to honor the local heroes who are trying to eliminate HIV/AIDS, like him.

Puger is a parking attendant who with some friends have dedicated their lives to taking care of orphaned children who were infected with the virus by their parents and had nowhere to go as they were also rejected by their relatives. 

Puger said that since 2012, he had taken care of 44 children living with HIV/AIDS. At this moment, there are 32 children up to to 16 years old who live together in the house in 11 bedrooms. 

The children have experienced rejection not only from their relatives, but also from their communities and from schools.

“Each of them who is school-aged has been expelled by schools at least four times once they found out that they are children with HIV/AIDS,” Puger said. 

However, he said another more disturbing issue is that while he focused on orphan children who got infected by their parents, he also found that many youngsters across Surakarta are infected by HIV/AIDS because they had unprotected sex.

“We received reports that there are 24 adolescents aged 16 to 20 years old who are living with HIV/AIDS. All of them were infected because they had unsafe sex,” Puger said. 

Puger showed his concern about the absence of sexual education that he said had become the main factor of  this situation.

“Many parents are just forbidding them to do this and that without explaining the impact of having unsafe sex. This is the effect of the absence of sexual education. We are finding more and more teenagers, even junior high school students, infected with HIV/AIDS,” he said.  

Taboos and negative assumptions surrounding sex education put young people at higher risk of HIV.

The Health Ministry's disease control and prevention director general, Anung Sugihantono, said that people, especially teenagers, must acquire the knowledge and the understanding of how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases as the HIV prevalence among those aged 20 to 29 years is quite high. 

The number of HIV cases among youngsters is indeed high and horrifying. Data from UNAIDS found that although new HIV infections in Indonesia are declining from more than 60,000 new cases in 2010 to 46,000 in 2018, 51 percent of new cases in 2018 were found among young people aged 15 to 24 years old. Most of them are male.

Indonesia has signed the 2016 Political Declaration on Ending AIDS and has committed with several United Nations member countries to ending the epidemic by 2030. The nation has also pledged to reach the 90-90-90 target by 2027: having 90 percent of people with HIV/AIDS aware of their HIV status, 90 percent of them getting antiretroviral drugs (ARV) treatment and 90 percent of them having their viral load suppressed.

Anung also revealed that only about 124,000 of the estimated 640,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia routinely undergo treatment with ARVs. 

"From the estimated 640,000, only 368,000 have checked their status. Only 250,000 have had ARV treatment. We have a long road ahead and much work. There are also people who have taken the treatment but did not finish it completely. This is a neverending problem,” Anung said in Bandung, West Java, in an event to mark World AIDS Day, which occurs every December.

Aditia Taslim, the executive director of Rumah Cemara, a community-based organization for people living with HIV/AIDS and drug users who was also present at the event said: “Forty-six thousand new cases is the third biggest number of new cases [after China and India] in the Asia-Pacific. AIDS-related deaths in Indonesia increased 58 percent, from 24,000 in 2010 to 38,000 in 2018."

He said Indonesia needs a grand change to mitigate HIV/AIDS.

"Protect people living with HIV/AIDS from stigma and discrimination. Government leaders must be brave to openly express their full support. They must carry out a comprehensive test and treat program to ensure all people with HIV/AIDS know their status and get ARV treatment," Aditia said.

Meanwhile, Aditya Wardhana, the executive director of the Indonesia AIDS Coalition, showed his concern over the availability of ARV medicines, especially Tenovofir, Lamivudin and Zidovudine, for people with HIV/AIDS for the next five months.

“Currently, there are 48,981 patients with HIV/AIDS who need it, but there are only 290,908 doses left. It will only be enough for the next five months," he said. "A break in the middle of the treatment will worsen the condition of people with HIV/AIDS.

“World AIDS Day this year is a day to mourn for the people with HIV/AIDS because, looking at the worrying state of ARV stocks, it will be a gamble whether they will still live next year or not.”

Dec. 1 is World AIDS Day. The theme this year was that communities make the difference. The day was for celebrating and strengthening the roles of community and HIV/AIDS activists such as Puger, Aditia and Adhitya to work hand in hand with the government in ending HIV/AIDS.

Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, said that on World AIDS Day, UNAIDS saluted the achievements of activists and communities in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Activists challenged the silence and brought life-saving services to their communities, but the countless contributions by communities and activists can never replace the responsibility of governments.

“With communities in the lead and governments living up to their promises, we will end AIDS,” she said.

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