Faithful female partners in long-term relationships are at risk of contracting HIV if their partners practice high-risk sex, a minister said Wednesday.

"We are aware that the number of infected women is increasing. Women who do not engage in high-risk sexual relationships are vulnerable to infection from steady partners who practice high-risk sex," Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Linda Amalia Sari Gumelar said.

She was speaking at the launch of an Indonesian-language version of a UN Report on HIV Transmission in Intimate Partner Relationships in Asia.

The report showed that women are more likely to contract HIV than men in such relationships.

In 2008, the National Commission on AIDS predicted that around 75 million men in Asia regularly paid for sex, and that around 4 million men used needles to take drugs and 16 million men had sex with other men.

A model based on the figures shows that approximately 50 million Asian women, including Indonesians, are at risk of contracting HIV from their long-term sexual partners.

About 90 percent of the 1.7 million women living with HIV in Asia are thought to have contracted the disease from long-term partners.

Women involved in long-term intimate relationships had widely believed to belong to the low-risk category, in contrast to for example men who pay for sex.

Zahidul Huque, a representative from the United Nations Population Fund, said the report was aimed
at destroying the stereotype that faithful women were not at risk from HIV.

"The report denies the myth that a seemingly monogamous sexual relationship is safe," Huque said.

The number of women in Asia living with HIV has increased drastically over the last 18 years. In 2008, women accounted for 35 percent of all adults with HIV, up from 17 percent in 1990, according to Zahidul.

The UN report said the number of women living with HIV accounted for 13 percent of all people with HIV in 2002. The figure increased in 2006.

Linda said the rising number of HIV/AIDS cases involving faithful women reflected a lack knowledge about the disease and a lack of awareness of rights among women.

"Women are expected to be aware of and fully understand their reproductive rights. It is necessary to  increase the number of programs aimed at strengthening women's reproductive rights. They need to know their rights so that they can avoid high-risk sex," Linda said.

Irwanto, a professor from Jakarta's Atmajaya University, said the threat of HIV transmission in long-term relationships was a new phenomenon.

He said most previous HIV campaigns had focused on injecting drug users. Only recently has it become widely understood in Asia that drug users can transfer the virus to their partners and children, he said.

AIDS commission secretary Nafsiah Mboi said efforts to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV in the country had failed to produce results, citing the increase in the number of housewives infected by their partners.

Budi Rissetyabudi from the Institution for Community Studies and Development said the institution's rapid assessment of long-term partner-to-partner transmission of HIV and sero-discordant couples in Indonesia revealed the vulnerability of  housewives.

"They are the weakest; they are weaker than women who use drugs or work as prostitutes," he said.