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People with HIV in Indonesia face rampant workplace discrimination
UNAIDS is reporting that roughly 640,000 people were living with HIV in Indonesia as of 2018. The number of AIDS-related deaths, moreover, had increased by 60 percent since 2010 from 24,000 to 38,000.
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A red ribbon (AIDS ribbon) with AIDS/HIV spelled out on a notice board. (Shutterstock/Hafiez Razali)
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ctivists have revealed that people with HIV (ODHA) in the country still face rampant stigmatization and discrimination in the workplace, despite the existence of various regulations that guarantee their basic human rights to work.
Maya Tri Siswati, a doctor who has treated ODHA since 2000, said one of her patients had recently experienced such discrimination as the company where he worked fired him right after he was identified as HIV-positive.
"I've got so many reports of similar incidents in other companies, proving that discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS is still rampant in the workplace," she said on Monday, adding that there had not yet been any studies done in this country on this specific issue.
The lecturer of medicine at Yarsi University, who also serves as an International Labour Organization (ILO) consultant for HIV prevention and occasionally provides HIV education at a number of companies across the capital Jakarta, suggested that medical school students should soon conduct a survey about the violation of ODHA's rights in the workplace.
She said HIV-positive people who have undergone antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and consumed ARV drugs to suppress the HIV virus, as well as to stop progression of the disease, could still function normally like people without an HIV infection.
"HIV-positive people who consume ARV drugs can still be productive and make achievements," she said, adding that the drugs also prevented onward transmission of the virus.
The activist was speaking on the sidelines of a public lecture entitled “HIV/AIDS Stigma and Discrimination in the Workplace: Time to Stop!", which was facilitated by the University of Indonesia’s School of Medicine (FKUI) to mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.
