Stop Discriminating Against Children with HIV/AIDS

KOMPAS/NIKSON SINAGA

A child living with HIV/AIDS (ADHA) completes an exercise on Tuesday (16/7/2019) at the Batak Protestant Church’s House of Love in Nainggolan district, Samosir regency, North Sumatra. He is one of hundreds of ADHA across the country who face discrimination at school, in communities and by their own relatives.

Children living with HIV/AIDS are often subject to discrimination. National Children’s Day, which is commemorated on 23 July, should be an occasion to cease all such discrimination and ensure that all children’s rights are fulfilled.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Discrimination against children living with HIV/AIDS (ADHA) occurs because of poor understanding about HIV/AIDS. Such discrimination only adds to the burden of ADHA and hinders the effectiveness of the efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.

Health Ministry records show that 2,881 of 79.6 million Indonesian children were living with HIV/AIDS in 2018. The five provinces with the highest numbers of ADHA are Papua (536 children), East Java (421), West Java (320), Central Java (308) and Jakarta (304).

ADHA are vulnerable because of their illness and the heavy psychological burden they carry. Discrimination in certain regions only exacerbates the problem.

In Solo, Central Java, 14 ADHA at a state elementary school in Laweyan district faced discrimination and rejection from the parents of their peers. Six ADHA in Samosir regency, North Sumatra, also faced a similar problem.

In the case in Solo, their rejection came up during a meeting of parents. The parents submitted a written complaint regarding the 14 ADHA who attended the school, in which they threatened to transfer their children to other schools if the 14 ADHA remained at the school. As a result, the 14 ADHA were forced to transfer from the school in February this year.

Solo National AIDS Commission (KPA) coordinator Tommy Prawoto said that the children’s rejection was due to a lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS.

In response to the issue, the Solo municipal administration transferred the 14 students to other schools and maintained discretion about their health condition. Solo Deputy Mayor Achmad Purnomo said that the municipality was committed to ensuring that ADHA received equal treatment, including in education. “Discrimination must not occur,” Purnomo said on Wednesday.

On evaluating the incident, the municipal administration and the KPA Solo are working together to improve public awareness on HIV/AIDS, including the risk of transmission, prevention and treatment. The hope is that the public will gain proper understanding on how to approach and treat ADHA.

Meanwhile, in the Samosir case, the six ADHA faced discrimination at school as well as from their families and communities. After facing discrimination the parents of other students at school, the Batak Protestant Church’s (HKBP) House of Love stepped in to support the children.

Samosir education agency head Rikardo Hutajulu said that, in principle, the regency administration did not prohibit ADHA from attending public school. “It is the people who reject them,” he said.

The regency administration has offered the six children an opportunity to attend a public learning center (PKBM) to take either the A-package elementary equivalency program or the B-package junior high school equivalency program.

Deaconess Enni Simanjuntak, a child caretaker at the HKBP House of Love, said that the community around the House of Love also rejected the children. “Some food stalls refused to serve them. Recently, some residents have asked the children to leave,” she said on Tuesday (16/7).

The ADHA who live at in the House of Love are commonly orphans. Their relatives rejected them after their parents died from HIV/AIDS. Some were temporarily cared for by relatives, but were nonetheless discriminated against. Their plates, beds and clothes were kept separately from the rest of the family.

House of Love child caretaker deaconess Elisabeth Sihombing said that discrimination against ADHA occurred because people did not understand that HIV/AIDS could only be transmitted through sexual intercourse, blood transfusions, shared needles and breast milk.

This corresponds with a Kompas R&D poll involving 518 respondents in early July, in which 53.1 percent of respondents said they were familiar with HIV/AIDS, 36.8 percent said they were a little familiar and 10.1 percent respondents said that they were unfamiliar with HIV/AIDS.

In terms of treating people living with HIV/AIDS (ODHA) and ADHA, 68.3 percent of respondents said they accepted them, while 16.4 percent preferred to maintain their distance, 10 percent rejected them and 5.3 percent gave no answer.

In Surabaya, some people do not reject ADHA despite their poor understanding about HIV/AIDS transmission. “My child goes to school like other children and there are almost no complaints about being left out by other children,” said A.B., 40, whose child is living with HIV/AIDS.

Privacy

The threat of discrimination against ADHA has prompted parents and legal guardians to keep their child’s health condition a secret. They are worried that their children might be discriminated against not only regarding their schooling and health, but also in their daily interactions.

A., 32, the mother of an ADHA in Jakarta, feared such discrimination. Since she and her child M., 12, were diagnosed with HIV in 2010, she has never talked about her child’s health with other people, especially at M.’s school.

“I am afraid that my child will be humiliated and ostracized. I am afraid that my child will not be treated equally like other children. Who can guarantee protection and safety for M. if people learn about M’s status,” she said on Saturday (20/7).

T., 39, a Bandung resident living with HIV/AIDS and whose child also has HIV/AIDS, also decided not to disclose her child’s health condition to the school for fear of different treatment. “People still view our illness as having a bad effect on the environment, even though we are the same as everyone else. Therefore, we choose to stay quiet, as my child does not appear any different from other children,” T. explained.

Health Minister Nila Moeloek said that that persistent stigma and discrimination hindered efforts to register ODHA and to ensure that they received proper treatment. “HIV is an iceberg phenomenon. We still have work to find out the exact numbers [of ODHA]. By being aware of their status, we can ensure optimal medical treatment for them, which will improve their life expectancy. This is especially true for children living with HIV/AIDS, as they still have their future ahead of them,” she said. (RWN/NSA/RTG/ETA/COK/FLO/TAN/BOW)