More people practicing safe sex: Survey
Sari P. Setiogi, Jakarta
More Indonesians have begun to practice safe sex, with the use of condoms by sexually active people on the rise, according to a survey.
The use of condoms with both regular and nonregular sexual partners increased to 40 percent and 84 percent, respectively, among young people last year, from 34 percent and 75 percent in 2002, according to a survey by DKT Indonesia, a non-governmental organization dealing with reproductive health.
The survey involved interviews with 1,226 males between 20 and 34 years of age in the cities of Jakarta, Surabaya and Denpasar last year. The findings were released in April. About 55 percent of the respondents were married, while the remaining were single and sexually active.
"The use of condoms among married couples is only 1 percent as it is not their first choice of contraception," DKT Indonesia country director Christopher Purdy told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
According to the survey, the number of people who had more than one sexual partner increased to 35 percent in 2003, from 28 percent in 2002 and 21 percent in 2000.
Around 79 percent of the respondents said they used condoms to avoid pregnancy, 52 percent to avoid contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and 69 percent to avoid other illnesses. Only 1 percent of the respondents said they used condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS.
Purdy said the use of condoms was still lower than expected, despite a program by the Ministry of Health to distribute free condoms as part of the government's campaign to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS and STIs.
Among the reasons for this is that there is a public stigma attached to the use of condoms, which are seen as being for commercial sex, sex outside of marriage and adultery, he said.
"That makes people feel ashamed to buy condoms. Another reason is that some people still think that using a condom means either they or their partners are not 'clean,'" Purdy said.
Indonesian Planned Parenthood Indonesia (PKBI) adviser Zarfiel Tafal said he did not believe condoms were widely used by high- income young men.
He called for more efforts to promote condom use among young males, particularly those who traveled a lot, in order to prevent the spread of STIs.
"We have to be realistic and stop being hypocrites. We (PKBI) assume that all adults and teenagers are sexually active and may suffer from STIs and unwanted pregnancies," he said.
Citing findings by the PKBI last year, Zarfiel said an average of 30 percent of high school students in the major cities of Manado, Yogyakarta and Bandung were sexually active.
Pandu Riono, a surveillance specialist with Family Health International, warned that husbands who traveled a lot were at risk of spreading HIV/AIDS and STIs because they were more likely to have extramarital sexual relations.
"They could easily infect their wives and their wives could transmit the virus to their children," he said.