Conflicting comments worry AIDS activist

Conflicting comments worry AIDS activist

By T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): Nafsiah Mboi is worried.

A pediatrician, politician and AIDS activist, Nafsiah has
reason to worry.

"AIDS is a very serious problem. But it seems that the issue
is not addressed seriously enough here," she said.

Nafsiah, 55, a member of the House of Representatives, is also
a member of the working group of the national commission for AIDS
control.

"We are in a guerrilla war, only this time our enemy is the
virus which is invisible, strong and smart. It is so smart that
it can infiltrate our bedroom," she pointed out.

"Instead of joining forces to fight the virus, however, we
fight against one and another," she told The Jakarta Post.

She was referring to conflicting statements on AIDS which have
confused the public.

The latest controversial subject which is still widely
discussed is the condom. Some people support promoting the use of
condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. Others, however, are
against it, saying that safe-sex campaigns will encourage
promiscuity. There are also others who doubt the efficiency of
condoms in preventing AIDS. Last month, a cabinet minister said
that condoms are only 26 percent effective in the protection
against the spread of HIV.

Nafsiah is also upset about a misleading statement from a
noted psychiatrist that AIDS is a curse from God, not a disease
which is caused by a virus.

"Maybe there are only a few people who make misleading
statements, but their statements have great impact on the
decision making process," she explained.

For example, a company which recently held a seminar on AIDS
for its employees canceled its plan to announce the event,
according to Nafsiah. "They were afraid to invite journalists
after they heard the controversy regarding the issue."

As of the end of October, the government has recorded 356
AIDS/HIV cases. Experts, however, estimate that the actual number
could be 200 times as many.

In its anti-AIDS campaigns, the government is using religious
and cultural approaches, combined with the promotion of family
values.

Nafsiah says those efforts work well on some people, but not
on others.

"Everybody is entitled to information about AIDS and to resort
to various means to protect themselves, such as through the
upholding of religion and family values, the use of condoms,
etc.," she said.

She criticizes the government, which has not fully recognized
people's rights to get the necessary information about AIDS and
on how to protect themselves from being infected by the HIV.

AIDS activists have launched safe-sex campaigns as an effort
to prevent the spread of the HIV. The government does not ban
such campaigns but does not promote the use of condoms to fight
AIDS, either. State Minister of Population/Chairman of the
National Family Planning Board says that condoms are the last
choice which should be used in emergency only.

"Safe-sex campaigns will improve an individual's
responsibility as a sex partner and at the same time protect
people from the infection of venereal diseases or AIDS," Nafsiah
said.

Nafsiah is aware that in Indonesia a lot of people consider
sex outside a marriage as taboo, but she dismisses the fear that
sex education will encourage promiscuity.

"Whether it is allowed or not, a lot of people practice sex
outside marriage," she said.

A number of AIDS activists regularly distribute free condoms
among sex workers. Who else are the target group?

"Where do pre-marital and extra-marital sex practices take
place? Does it occur only in the 'flesh markets'?"

"Most extra-marital cases happen because those involved like
one another," she said.

She told the Post that she has met a lot of women who know
that their husbands have sex outside their marriages and contract
venereal diseases. But the women dare not refuse their husbands
sex.

"As men are believed to have more sexual power than women, it
is men who should become the main target of safe-sex campaigns,
instead of women", Nafsiah said.

Nafsiah, who was born in South Sulawesi in 1940, graduated
from the School of Medicines of the University of Indonesia in
1964. From 1968 to 1971 she studied pediatrics at the same
university. She got her master's degree in public health from
Prince Leopold Institute in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1990.

"In 1978 I was about to study in the Netherlands for my PhD.
But I had to cancel because my husband was appointed governor of
East Nusa Tenggara province," she said.

She decided to put off her ambition to further her education
and went with her husband, Aloysius Benedictus Mboi, to the
eastern part of Indonesia, the development of which lags behind
the western part of the country.

In 1983 she sent an application for a research fellow program
at Harvard. She was accepted. But again she could not go because
her husband's term of office was extended for another five years.

It was not easy for her to make the decision: either to join
her husband or to continue her studies.

"There are times when we exchange our roles. When I was
younger, I was pendamping (partner) of my husband and mother of
my children. Now that the children have grown up, I am still a
pendamping of my husband, but I have to be able to develop myself
and work," she said.

Nafsiah believes that there are times to pursue one's
ambition, depending on the priority.

While in East Nusa Tenggara, Nafsiah was more than her
husband's companion. She dedicated herself to improving the local
people's health.

During her first year in the province, the infant mortality
rate was 130 per 1,000 births, while the mortality rate of
children under five years old was 200 per 1,000 lives. Ten years
later, the infant mortality rate dropped to 80 in 1,000, while
the mortality rate of the under fives dropped to 115 per 1,000.

She also organized a project for people with fissures to
undergo operation during her stay in the province. More than
1,250 patients benefited from the program. She received an award
from President Soeharto in 1990 for her success in the project.

In 1986, Nafsiah and her husband, who is also a physician,
were awarded the Magsaysay award by the Philippines government
for their dedication to the public.

In 1988, Mboi's office-term as a governor was over and he got
the chance to study in Leiden, the Netherlands. Nafsiah joined
her husband, but she could not just stay at home.

She later decided to study in Antwerp, which was only about a
two-and-a-half-hour drive from Leiden.

"From Monday to Thursday, I was in Antwerp. On weekends I was
in Leiden," she said.

She started to take particular interest in AIDS in 1990 and
1991 when she was a research fellow at Harvard University. It was
Dr. Jonathan Mann, former director of the World Health
Organization's Global Program on AIDS, who reminded her of the
need to give more attention to AIDS.

"He said, 'Your country is a time bomb. You have a huge
population. You will be in trouble if you don't handle the issue
of AIDS properly'," Nafsiah recalled.

But no one is strong enough to handle it alone. AIDS
activists, the government and the public should join forces to
tame the bomb.