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.