According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), HIV/AIDS in Indonesia is one of Asia’s fastest growing epidemics in recent years. As the world is currently battling a new coronavirus outbreak, old diseases such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remain a threat to many. It was reported that more than half a million Indonesians are living with HIV.
An Indonesian activist, who is also a doctor, recently revealed that people who have contracted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the country still face rampant stigmatisation and discrimination in the workplace.
Last week, local media in Indonesia broke a story that 14 students with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), had been expelled from a public elementary school following demands from parents of other students.The headmaster of the Purwotomo Public Elementary School who, like many Indonesians, goes by the single name Karwi, told local media that the students in question had not been allowed to attend classes – in the town of Solo in Central Java province – since last week.
In May last year, two men were flogged 83 times in the Indonesian province of Aceh in front of a crowd of thousands. Their crime – being gay. The two men were apprehended a few months back for allegedly having same sex relations and a Sharia court later convicted them of sodomy. Aceh is the only Indonesian province to enforce strict Islamic law for criminal offences.
