People with AIDS Said Buried Alive in Papua New Guinea

Ignorance about AIDS in Papua New Guinea has led to women being murdered by mobs accusing them of witchcraft, and worse:

"Margaret Marabe, who spent five months carrying out an AIDS awareness campaign in the remote Southern Highlands of the South Pacific nation, said she had seen five people buried alive. One was calling out 'Mama, Mama' as the soil was shovelled over his head, said Ms Marabe, who works for a volunteer organisation called Igat Hope, Pidgin English for I've Got Hope. 'One of them was my cousin, who was buried alive,' she said. 'I said, 'Why are they doing that?' And they said, 'If we let them live, stay in the same house, eat together and use or share utensils, we will contract the disease and we too might die'.' Villagers had told her it was common for people to bury AIDS victims alive."

In July, I posted a story reporting that lawmakers in Papua were considering the use of microchip implants to track HIV carriers.

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Papua Considering Chip Implants for HIV Carriers [tr]

Papua Considering Chip Implants for HIV Carriers

A doctor involved in the preparation of a healthcare regulation bill in the Indonesian province of Papua cited dangerous behavior among some infected with the HIV as the reason lawmakers are considering the use of microchip implants in tracking some HIV carriers.

Said Dr. John Manangsang: "We in the government in Papua have to think hard on ways to provide protection to people from the spread of the disease. Some of the infected people experience a change of behaviour and can turn more aggressive and would not think twice of infecting others. Among one of the means being considered is the monitoring of those infected people who can pose a danger to others. The use of chip implants is one of the ways to do so, but only for those few who turn aggressive and clearly continue to disregard what they know about the disease and spread the virus to others."

Constant Karma, the head of the Papua chapter of the National AIDS Commission, slammed the announcement: "People with HIV/AIDS are not like sharks under observation so that they have to be implanted with microchips to monitor their movements. Any form of identification of people with HIV/AIDS violates human rights."

Microchips mulled for HIV carriers in Indonesia's Papua [afp]