Indonesia Launches Condom Campaign in the Midst of HIV Crisis

In the first ever national event intended to promote condom use, Indonesia is attempting to make it plain that condoms should always be used. In an attempt to curb unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, Jarkata and other communities in Indonesia are participating in a condom campaign.
National Condom Week will coincide with December 1st, which is World AIDS Day. The National Family Planning Board is overseeing the condom week, which is a groundbreaking event for Indonesia. It will involve the distribution of condoms, the education of condom use, information about how to have sex safely, and other events which are all aimed at trying to get rid of the stigma of condom use in Indonesia.
The problem with condoms in Indonesia is that thus far they have only been promoted as family planning tools. The social environment in Indonesia has been unsupportive of the use of condoms, and there is a great amount of ignorance as to the other things that condoms can do. Along with a general low awareness of safe sex and how important it is, these factors have led to condoms only being used by one percent of those people who want to prevent pregnancy. Their use for other reasons, such as stopping HIV and AIDS and other diseases is almost nonexistent.
The event is going to be aimed at making condoms more popular, and at giving the people their own tools to protect against getting pregnant and getting diseases. In the world’s most populous nation that is Muslim, this had been met with great stigma. The leaders of the movement say that they don’t want to force the Muslim leaders to promote condoms themselves and endorse their use – but they do want to give the medical arguments for condom use to these leaders, in hopes that they will understand for themselves how important condoms are in this nation. There is also a belief that the safe sex education itself is going to help curb the spread of HIV. This comes after a the World Health Organization announced in February that Indonesia had one of the fastest growing populations with HIV in the entire world.
By having Condom Week, the National Family Planning Board is hoping that more Indonesians will become educated about what exactly safe sex means, and what danger is truly posed by the spread of HIV and AIDS. There is a lot of knowledge that is not correct which many people learn from each other and even from doctor figures. Helping educate the population about these diseases and prevent them is a tremendous milestone for this country. They are hoping that from the events that will be nation-wide during that week, more people will learn the truth about these diseases, and how easy they would be to control if safe sex practices were better adopted and more widely used. It is the hope of this board and the other people who are in support of the Condom Week that more people will recognize condoms as being helpful and will hopefully begin to use them more.