ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
July 16, 2018
Research warns Indonesia gay bashing is fuelling HIV epidemic
INCREASE IN INFECTIONS. In this March
17, 2016 file photo, a man walks past an anti-LGBT
banner with writings reading “Indonesia is on LGBT
emergency” and “LGBT is a contagious disease, save
the young generation from LGBT people” outside
the headquarters of a conservative Islamic group in
Jakarta, Indonesia. The death of a 20-year-old man
with HIV who died after he “effectively committed sui-
cide” by stopping anti-viral medication is a sign of an
out-of-control but little-acknowledged epidemic of HIV
among gay men in Indonesia that researchers say is
now being fuelled by a gay hate climate fostered by
the country’s conservative political and religious lead-
ers. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)
By Stephen Wright
The Associated Press
AKARTA, Indonesia — Disowned
by his father and ill-equipped to
deal with the stigma of HIV/AIDS, a
young man who died in the central Indo-
nesian city of Yogyakarta early this year
had “effectively committed suicide” by
stopping anti-viral medication, according
to a doctor familiar with the case.
The 20-year-old man’s shocking death is
a sign of an out-of-control but little
acknowledged epidemic of HIV among gay
men in Indonesia that researchers say is
now being fuelled by a gay hate climate
whipped up by the country’s conservative
political and religious leaders.
After the young man died in February at
a Yogyakarta shelter, no one from his
immediate family took the body, said
Sandeep Nanwani, a doctor and HIV
outreach worker. The previous year,
Nanwani had helped raise funds to move
him from Jakarta, the capital, where he’d
lost his job due to his deteriorating health.
“The family disowned him. They didn’t
want anything to do with him,” said
Nanwani. “In the shelter, he felt like
there’s nothing, no future. And then he
started skipping his medications.”
According to the United Nations, human
immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, affects
more than a quarter of Indonesian men
who have sex with men, a dramatic
increase from five percent in 2007. In
Jakarta and the capital of Bali province,
Denpasar, the rate is 1 in 3.
In common with the wider population of
HIV-positive people in Indonesia, the
majority are not tested for HIV until
developing symptoms of illness indicating
their immune system has been compro-
mised. Only a small minority receive
anti-viral medications that can give people
with HIV near-normal life expectancy.
Condom use and testing individuals
from high-risk groups for the virus —
before it weakens the immune system
causing Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome, or AIDS — are both crucial to
curbing its spread, according to
communicable disease experts.
But Indonesia is failing at both and is
now making it even more difficult for
health workers to reach gay and bisexual
J
men.
Highly publicized police raids targeting
gay men and a vicious outpouring of
anti-LGBT rhetoric from officials and
other influential figures since early 2016
have caused significant disruption to HIV
awareness and testing programs, ac-
cording to a Human Rights Watch report.
Many of the outreach workers inter-
viewed by the rights group reported
“substantial and unprecedented negative
impacts on their ability to contact and
counsel” gay and bisexual men, the report
said.
In Jakarta, raided venues such as
saunas and clubs that were among the
so-called “hotspots” for health workers to
make contact with gay men closed.
“The remaining locations are getting
harder and harder to work at,” said a
health worker interviewed by Human
Rights Watch. “Fewer and fewer guys
agree to get tested or take condoms each
time.”
Laura Nevendorff, a researcher at the
HIV Research Center at Atma Jaya
Catholic University, said the police
practice of using condoms as evidence
against gay men has had a pernicious
ripple effect, turning the crucial rubber
safeguard into possible grounds for
criminal prosecution.
Though deeply frowned upon, homo-
sexuality is not illegal in Indonesia. Police
have used an anti-pornography law to
prosecute gay men.
Hackers infiltrated
Cambodia’s politics
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Difficulty
MEDIUM
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level: Medium
#89483
# 34
Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1
through 9 appear one time each in every row, col-
umn, and 3x3 box.
Solution to
last issue’s
puzzle
Puzzle #62515 (Easy)
All solutions available at
<www.sudoku.com>.
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BEIJING (AP) — The
U.S. cybersecurity firm
FireEye says it has found
evidence that a Chinese
hacking team it believes is
linked to Beijing has pene-
trated computer systems
belonging to Cambodia’s
election commission, oppo-
sition leaders, and media.
FireEye said it did not
find evidence that the
Chinese hackers are work-
ing to sway Cambodian
elections on July 29 in the
ruling party’s favor, but the
findings may cast a murky
geopolitical shadow over
the elections critics already
say will be neither free nor
fair.
China’s
Foreign
Ministry has rejected the
allegations.
Cambodian
Prime
Minister Hun Sen, a
staunch ally of Beijing, had
faced
what
analysts
predicted would have been
a tight race before he jailed
opposition leader Kem
Sokha last year, accusing
him of treason, and courts
disbanded the main opposi-
tion party.
“They are afraid,” said Nevendorff.
“They think if they are carrying condoms,
it could jeopardize their safety.”
Because of conservative morality in the
world’s most populous Muslim nation and
the intense LGBT backlash, Indonesia’s
HIV prevention strategy does not openly
target gay or bisexual men, who along with
injecting drug users, female sex workers,
and transgender people are the high-risk
groups in the Indonesian epidemic.
Instead, overtaxed nongovernment
organizations are trying to fill the gulf in a
climate hostile to their work.
The failure of that approach is clear
when compared with Thailand, a
neighboring developing country of similar
income level to Indonesia that has
addressed the epidemic more openly.
About nine percent of Thai gay and
bisexual men have the HIV virus,
compared with 26 percent in Indonesia,
according to U.N. data. More than 90
percent of the people estimated to have
HIV in Thailand have been tested and
know their result, compared with only 1 in
3 in Indonesia.
Ignatius Praptoraharjo, a public-health
policy expert and HIV researcher at Atma
Jaya, said the epidemic is set to worsen,
particularly among young men, who are
already dominating new infections.
“We believe the anti-homosexual
[rhetoric] will fuel the HIV epidemic
among men who have sex with men,” he
said.
Among gay and bisexual men aged 24 or
younger, the center’s research shows no
difference in frequency of condom use
between those who have HIV and those
who don’t.
Effectively, “they are waiting in turn to
be infected,” he said.
Differences in care between Indonesia
and Thailand are also stark.
Just 12 percent of people with HIV in
Indonesia are taking anti-viral medica-
tion, compared with nearly 70 percent in
Thailand.
Nanwani said the toll of the health crisis
is “hidden” from view.
Frequently, people with HIV/AIDS are
dying alone, either afraid to reveal their
health status — and in many cases their
sexual orientation — to their families or
rejected by them when they do.
Nanwani said a community group he is
involved with in Yogyakarta paid for about
10 burials last year of people who died from
HIV/AIDS
because
they
left
no
information of family to contact.
In the case of the 20-year-old man who
died in February, an aunt took his body for
burial in his deceased mother’s village.
On Facebook, he posted frequently
about his failing health and dismay at the
rising tide of anti-LGBT sentiment in
Indonesia.
His final message said god would help
him recover if only his mind was capable.
“Thanks for the support and prayers,” he
wrote.
Toxic tanneries forced to move pollute new Bangladesh
Continued from page 3
for better waste treatment facilities in
Savar.
All of the companies that responded said
they no longer get any leather from
tanneries in Bangladesh. Some said they
never did.
Macy’s, Timberland, and Clarks
continue to have products made there.
“Clarks has no direct or indirect
relationship with any tannery in
Bangladesh,” the company said in a
statement. Its Bangladesh manufacturer
sources all of its leather from outside the
country, and the company continuously
audits all of its partners, the statement
said.
At the new Savar industrial center, an
AP reporter found that a central effluent
treatment plant had yet to be fully
functional, contradicting claims from
authorities that it’s been reinforced.
Chinese engineers working on the plant
refused to talk.
In addition to delayed operations at the
effluent treatment plant, a new problem
has started: repeated breaches in the
embankment of a pond where solid waste
is supposed to be held. This is allowing
more pollution — mixed with rainwater —
to flow into the river.
“This is worrying. The embankment has
been repaired repeatedly, but because of
the monsoon, the breaches developed
again,” said Delowar Hossain, a plant
consultant.
Abu Naser Khan, chairman of the Save
the Environment Movement, said the new
site
has
multiple
infrastructural
deficiencies, causing serious pollution in
the area.
“It’s killing the river, it’s poisoning soil,
and
it’s
destroying
the
whole
environment,” Khan said. “Dangerous
chemicals are still flowing into the river.”
It’s clear, he said, that relocating the
toxic leather tanning factories from
intensely polluted Hazaribagh has just
moved the environmental disaster to
another place.
“It seems the government does not care
for the environment. Similar things are
happening here,” Khan said. “It’s really
frustrating that authorities are failing to
understand the serious environmental
consequences from pollution, which could
be averted.”
Khan said their complaints “are falling
into deaf ears.”
Bangladeshi
leather-goods
manu-
facturers were reluctant to comment.
An official at a leading exporting factory
said the company shouldn’t suffer for the
failure of the authorities.
“We have lodged complaints again and
again, but still the effluent treatment
plant is not fully functional and the pace of
development inside the tannery belt is
very slow,” said the official, who spoke on
condition
of
anonymity,
fearing
retribution.
“The government has shouldered all
responsibilities
for
preparing
all
infrastructures of the new site,” he said.
“We have nothing to contribute here.”
Mendoza reported from San Francisco, California.