Experts call for compulsory HIV tests for migrant workers

Experts call for compulsory HIV tests for migrant workers

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Demography experts have called on the government to introduce
compulsory anti-HIV/AIDS tests for migrant workers as a way to
prevent the rapid spread of the deadly virus.

Graeme Hugo, an expert from Australia's University of
Adelaide, who has conducted research on HIV/AIDS in Indonesia,
said on Thursday such compulsory tests would help health
authorities here find the exact number of virus-infected people.

He said several countries had obliged arriving overseas
workers to take compulsory HIV tests.

"It will be wise to run HIV testing for migrant workers to
obtain better figures on the HIV/AIDS spread," Hugo told a
discussion, during which he presented the results of his
research.

He said the high mobility of nomadic workers, who often
changed sexual partners, had contributed to the vast spread of
HIV/AIDS.

Hugo said the workers were separated from their spouses, were
free from traditional constraints on sex and inevitably lived
near red-light districts which made them prone to the virus.

He said there were some places that presented migrant workers
with greater risks of HIV and AIDS infection.

The "hotspots" included isolated working places, such as ports
and harbors, mining sites and plantations, forest industries,
remote construction sites and border areas, he added.

"The high level of HIV infection is not necessarily related to
population mobility, but it is more contributed to by the type of
people movement and their sexual behavior," Hugo said.

Diah Widyarti, a researcher at the Ministry of Manpower and
Transmigration, underlined the need for the government to make
HIV tests compulsory for migrant workers.

She said Hugo's study should be a wake-up call for the
government to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases
in connection with the workers' mobility.

"We need more similar studies and reliable documentation. We
should intensify the dissemination of information about this
matter to improve the workers' awareness since we cannot conduct
compulsory HIV tests," she said.

Hugo said he recorded a significant rise of the temporary
labor migration within the country in the last decade, in which
people moved to isolated working sites.

"This study shows a pattern of many cases, in which mobile
people are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behavior
with commercial sex workers, many of them not using condoms," he
said.

Although there was no comprehensive research yet on the number
of temporary workers with HIV/AIDS, Hugo urged the government to
take action to curb the likely rapid spread of the virus due to
its high prevalence in Indonesia.

According to official data released by the government last
year, only 1,559 cases of HIV/AIDS were so far recorded. But
activists said the number of Indonesians infected by the lethal
virus reached between 80,000 and 120,000.

Meanwhile, Sri Moertaningsih Adioetomo of Jakarta's University
of Indonesia, said one quarter of the 210 million Indonesian
people traveled to make a living.

All of them were unskilled workers who were prone to
contracting HIVAIDS, she added. "They become street children,
scavengers and prostitutes and are more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS."