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Russia Profile | June
23, 2005 "We are all very different as people, but we all have the same cause," Andrei, one of the members of the Community of People Living With HIV and AIDS, said at a meeting of the organization at a cafe in downtown Moscow. Despite the lack of understanding that those with his affliction constantly face, something demonstrated by the request from the cafe?s owners that the event not be publicized, Andrei spoke with a determined, almost proud demeanor. He said that he had tested HIV-positive several years
ago after having sex with a prostitute he picked up on Tverskaya
Ulitsa, Moscow's main drag and the center of its illegal sex trade
in the 1990s. At the time, Andrei was a successful pharmacist and
member of the country's nascent middle class. By contrast, Fyodor,
another member of the group, was a working class laborer "A lot of people only know of AIDS as the 'plague of the 20th century' and that there is no cure," said Mikhail Rukavishnikov, who works as a volunteer with the organization. "Very few people know that there are medical treatments that allow you to live a long life, despite not being entirely cured." At the same time, Rukavishnikov points out that the
most effective courses of treatment cost from $10,000 to $15,000
per year, a price clearly beyond the reach of all but a small percentage
of the HIV-positive population in Russia. This means little or no
treatment for most of the infected whose number, according to officially
registered cases, numbers 300,000, but is "The actual number of people who are HIV-positive
is close to 1 million," said Vadim Pokrovsky, the head of the
Federal Center for AIDS prevention. "The funds in the federal
budget will only cover treatment for about 500 people. This is why
we, like a number of African countries, are interested in finding
lower-priced medicines than those presently charged by the Pokrovsky's efforts are just one example of the greater attention that is being paid to the problem by a government that has been accused in the past of doing far too little. Comments two years ago from Vladimir Shevchenko, then the federal health minister, that his primary aim was to save the lives of "normal people" were cited as a prime example of official attitudes. He appeared to be alluding to the fact that a large number of infected were either prostitutes or drug addicts. Gennady Onishchenko, the head of the federal Public Health Service, said that what is needed is more help for people in these high-risk groups, rather than further stigmatization. "Who is standing out on Tverskaya Ulitsa?"
Onishchenko asked rhetorically at a press conference held in Moscow
at the end of last year. "Young, miserable girls, who are preyed
upon sexually by monsters that are in a superior position because
of their gender. Eighty percent of all HIV-positive people in Russia
are young, between15 and 29 years of age, and Catching upIronically, with regard to HIV infection, women are
the victims of an unwelcome form of gender equality - they are catching
up to the men in the realm of drug abuse. According to government
estimates, women make up 20 to 30 percent of the 343,000 people
registered by the medical authorities as drug addicts and Onishchenko
said that the number of female users grew by The increase slowed in 2002, likely as a result of tougher law-enforcement measures against the drug trade in combination with improvements in economic conditions in the country. The number of new female users actually fell by seven percent. Experts say that this is part of a larger trend. "In 2000, the number of new addicts topped out, with 51.6 people per 100,000 people using drugs for the first time ," said Konstantin Kuzminykh, the president of the Substance Abuse Security Foundation, which is based in St. Petersburg. "In 2003, there were only 16.1 new addicts registered per 100,000." Health Ministry estimates that there are 2 million alcoholics in Russia point to a more traditional problem. For the motherland of vodka and loose drinking laws and habits, the problem is still likely a greater public health and social issue than either HIV/AIDS or drug addiction. The increase in alcohol consumption among women has mirrored the increase in drug use, but the most alarming statistics are those of increases in drinking among the young. "The average age for the first drink for Rus-sian
males is 13 years and 4 months, while the girls catch up at 14 years,
1 month," said Franz Sheregy, the director of the Center of
Sociological Research at the Federal Education Agency. "Aggressive
beer advertising campaigns on television have had a negative effect.
Boys at vocational schools start drinking beer New laws ban beer ads on television between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., but the sheer availability of beer remains a problem. Another law passed by the State Duma early this year would have prohibited beer consumption on the streets and restricted where beer and so-called "soft" alcoholic beverages can be sold, but the law was changed to restrict sale and consumption only in certain public places, including schools, public transport and sports centers, after President Vladimir Putin refused to sign it in its original form, reportedly after heavy campaigning by the country's powerful beer lobby. Beer can still be bought at street kiosks and enforcement of existing laws is poor, including those regarding sales to minors. Hidden problemThe increase in drinking among women is harder to spot, according to Sheregy, largely because of traditional attitudes toward acceptable behavior. "Society sort of sanctions heavy drinking on the part of men, even for the attractive and young," Sheregy said. "But women are often forced to hide their alcohol problem, which often makes their individual situations worse." Official statistics support Sheregy, as the ratio of men to women who end up in police drunk tanks in Moscow is 32:1, but volunteers working at organizations helping people deal anonymously with alcohol problems say that the proportion of women they see is much higher. All of these so called "social illnesses" have been generating increasing public attention and concern. The question of how best to combat them, however, remains a point of debate in the government and society. Getting toughMoves in recent years would seem to indicate that
the government has opted to use more stringent enforcement measures
as the primary weapon in the battle, introducing measures to increase
the number of police and other officials combating drug trafficking
and , in particular, drug peddling. In 2003, Putin created the State
Committee for the Control of the Trafficking The new body, which has a staff of 40,000, many transfered from the now defunct tax police, is headed by Putin's personal friend and fellow former KGB officer, Viktor Cherkesov, who has brought in tougher measures that draw criticism from human rights groups. Gosnarkokontrol has introduced a law in the State
Duma to have the amount of drugs found on a person in order to be
charged with trafficking. The limits that were originally set by
the Interior Ministry were condemned as ridiculously low, and were
raised to 10 "minimal doses" by changes to the criminal
code last year, but Gosnarkokontrol's draft calls for the level
to "I don't think that this is an appropriate move," said Andrei Babushkin, the co-chairman of the human rights group For Civil Rights, which lobbied in favor of last year's changes to the Criminal Code. "This will provide the police and the anti-drug body a lot of room to launch false prosecutions." Nikolai Ivanets, the director of the National Scientific Substance Abuse Center, run by the Health Ministry, said that the general approach to combating social illnesses is itself flawed. "We seem to crack down on the supply of drugs all the time, instead of trying to do something to decrease the demand for drugs," he said. "This is a difficult task that involves working with schools, parents and young people themselves. You can not just hire 40,000 new police officers to deal with it and then say that the job is done." Ни одной цифре верить нельзя (Ба-лдей Ага) |
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