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Unsafe sex has overtaken the sharing of needles for narcotics as the leading source of HIV transmission in Indonesia, according HIV/AIDS officials.

“A few years ago, most HIV/AIDS infections in Indonesia were caused by intravenous drug use, but now the trend has shifted. Heterosexual sex contributed more than half of the total HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia,” Nafsiah Mboi, the National Secretary of Indonesian AIDS Commission (KPA), told a news conference after the launch of a United Nations report on HIV transmission in Asia.

The report found that more than 90 percent of 1.7 million women living with HIV in Asia were infected by their husbands or longtime partners. The report did not outline statistics specific to Indonesia, but Nafsiah said the same conditions existed in Indonesia, where more women were infected by their husbands or partners.

Nafsiah said unsafe sex had been gradually gaining on sharing needles as the number one vector for the disease here, and the commission discovered in September 2009 that sexual transmission had surpassed drug use. She said that although the rate of intravenous drug use remained high, fewer drug users were sharing needles due to an aggressive clean-needle campaign and the rise of methadone treatment.

While such campaigns had resulted in some gains in Indonesia, safe-sex campaigns and the efforts to promote condom use had fallen flat, she said. Most women were reluctant to ask about their husbands’ sexual behavior and to ask them to wear condoms.

“For the past five years, almost no progress has been made in preventing HIV/AIDS transmission through unsafe sex. Condom use remains stagnant and women are still too afraid to second-guess their husbands,” she said.

Nafsiah said an estimated 3.3 million Indonesian men visited red-light districts regularly, and 1.6 million women are married to husbands who regularly have sex with prostitutes. Meanwhile, there has been no progress at all on condom use — a little more than 1 percent of the total number of men who engage in risky sexual behavior use condoms.

“These women are monogamous, they don’t use drugs, but they were infected because of their husbands irresponsible behavior,” she said.

Nancy Fee, the UNAIDS country coordinator for Indonesia, said more than a quarter of the estimated 300,000 people living with HIV in Indonesia were women who did not engage in risky sexual behavior. “Indonesia is at a transition point now. You think a lot people are using drugs out there, but do you know how many people are having sex in this country?” she said.

The state minister for women’s empowerment and child protection, Linda Gumelar, said Indonesian women have low access to reproductive health. “Because of the patriarchal system, women are not an equal communication partner to men and have no right to question their reproductive health. Women have very low bargaining power when it comes to sex,” she said.

Linda suggested programs in which men explain the benefits of condom use to other men. “Let’s be honest here, men don’t usually listen to women,” she said.