Mandatory HIV tests out of the question: Official

Fitri Wulandari and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia cannot make Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) tests mandatory for migrant workers because Jakarta is party to an international agreement it signed in Paris, which bans such examinations, a government official said on Monday.

Haikin Rachmat, director of communicable diseases and environmental health at the Ministry of Health, said that under the 1994 agreement, compulsory HIV tests would be a violation of human rights.

"In accordance with the Paris Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) Summit in 1994 and the government's policy on AIDS monitoring, we don't require workers intending to work abroad or at home to take HIV tests," he told The Jakarta Post".

Haikin said Indonesia and 42 other countries that signed the summit agreement declared that people who had contracted HIV/AIDS should not be discriminated against in their field of work and that a HIV test was a matter of personal choice.

He was responding to calls by demography experts for the government to introduce compulsory HIV tests for migrant workers as a means to prevent the rapid spread of the deadly virus.

Graeme Hugo, an expert from Australia's University of Adelaide, said on Thursday the high mobility of nomadic workers, who often changed sexual partners, had contributed to the vast spread of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia. Hugo suggested the Indonesian government monitor migrant workers to control the spread of HIV.

Officially the number of recorded HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia stands at 1,559. But activists believe the number has reached between 80,000 and 120,000 cases.

Haikin said HIV tests are compulsory for blood donors and foreign migrant workers if required by the host country wanting to employ them. Such a test is conducted by the Ministry of Manpower and the relevant labor recruitment agency, he added.

He said the government conducted non-compulsory HIV tests every year for the purposes of AIDS monitoring and individual diagnosis.

A patient's identity should be kept confidential, he said.

Haikin said the government had taken several preventive measures to curb the spread of the virus in cooperation with non- governmental organizations.

These measures include promoting the use of condoms among sex workers and encouraging migrant workers to undergo voluntary tests, he said.