WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 538, March 20, 2008 KYRGYZ LEADER GUILTY OF AKSY KILLINGS Past and present heads of state blamed for 2002 bloodshed which refuses to go away as a political issue. By Abdumomun Mamaraimov in Karajygach
KAZAK BUILDERS AT RISK FROM POOR SAFETY STANDARDS Construction companies are cutting corners when it comes to safety standards and workers are suffering more accidents as a result. By Natalya Napolskaya in Almaty TURKMENISTAN TO TACKLE POPULATION DECLINE It will take more than special awards to encourage families to have more children. By IWPR staff in Central Asia TAJIKS DISPUTE BENEFITS OF HUNTING Scientists warn that many species are under threat, as local communities have no stake in face extinction as a result of poorly regulated hunts and poachers. By Nafisa Pisarejeva in Dushanbe TAJIKS WITH HIV/AIDS SUFFER IN SILENCE Only when Tajikistan breaks down the walls of silence and prejudice surrounding HIV/AIDS can it hope to slow infection rates. By Jamila Majidova in Dushanbe **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** 2008 KURT SCHORK AWARDS IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM Call for entries now open. 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By Abdumomun Mamaraimov in Karajygach A self-styled peoples court, acting in the name of the people of the Aksy district of southern Kyrgyzstan, has pronounced the countrys current and previous presidents guilty of a massacre that occurred six years ago. Discontented with the scant results of official probes into the events of March 2002, when six people died after troops opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators, Aksy residents convened their own unofficial tribunal, which declared that President Kurmanbek Bakiev and his predecessor Askar Akaev were both to blame. The open-air trial took place on March 17 six years to the day from the shootings - in Karajygach, a mountain village in the Aksy district of the southern Jalalabad region. The village lies not far from the place where police opened fire on a crowd of about 10,000 people, who were protesting against the arrest of their local member of parliament, Azimbek Beknazarov. After armed police moved in to stop the protest, protesters threw stones, and government forces responded with live fire. Four people died on the spot, a fifth died later of his injuries, and a sixth was killed the following day. Kyrgyzstan was unused to this kind of bloodshed, and the fact that the violence was apparently authorised by government sparked a series of massive demonstrations throughout 2002. The sense of anger was increased by the Akaev governments unresponsiveness. No ministers stepped down, the investigation ground to a halt, and the only punishments meted out - two prosecutors and two senior policemen convicted by court martial in December 2002 were quashed the following May. Akaev was ousted by a wave of protests in March 2005, and the new administration led by President Bakiev promised to reopen the Aksy investigation. Beknazarov was appointed chief prosecutor and launched formal investigations but he was dismissed in September 2005. In June 2006, Kyrgyzstans Supreme Court effectively drew a line under the case by saying there was no need to review the cases of the four officials originally convicted. For Aksy residents, however, the demand for justice has never gone away. About 500 of them selected a 16-member panel to serve as judges in the March 17 trial. Organisers of the event included Topchubek Turgunaliev, leader of the opposition Erkindik party, and Dooronbek Sadyrbaev, the oldest member of parliament. They said two-thirds of the judges had some legal background, and were chosen to represent various regions of Kyrgyzstan. Edil Kerimkulov, who runs a private law firm, was chosen to preside over the panel. Before a circle of Aksy residents, three prosecutors brought evidence against serving and past government officials, including Bakiev. Before joining the opposition forces that toppled Akaev, he had served as Kyrgyz prime minister, a post he held at the time of the Aksy shootings. Unsurprisingly, all but one of the individuals accused of masterminding or sanctioning the bloodshed failed to make an appearance. After eyewitnesses and experts, including Beknazarov, had given evidence, the peoples court found a total of 41 officials guilty. In addition to Akaev and Bakiev, they included officials from the prosecutors office, the police and the judiciary. The then heads of state radio and television and the editors of two government newspapers were deemed to have exacerbated the situation through biased coverage of events in Aksy. The former governor of Jalalabad region, Sultan Urmanaev, was acquitted in recognition of the fact that he attended the tribunal in person and admitted some responsibility. Relatives of the people killed six years ago came to give testimony on what happened that day. Some claimed the protesters were shot dead by marksmen using sniper rifles, rather than rank-and-file policemen. Lawyer Sartbay Jalchybekov, acting as one of the three prosecutors, said the local police had been issued with 29 firearms. But the rifles shot mainly into the air, whereas the people were killed by sniper fire, he said. Local people are particularly disappointed with President Bakievs failure to live up to his pledges to find and punish those behind the killings. Beknazarov told the tribunal that in his time as chief prosecutor, he uncovered evidence that in his capacity as prime minister, Bakiev authorised the use of weapons against the protesters. When I realised that Bakiev himself was implicated, I asked him to testify, Later, when I realised he wasnt going to do that, I resigned. he said. I accept that I did not finish [the investigation] in the three months that I was prosecutor general. But Bakiev has not done that in three years as president. Government officials have dismissed the Aksy trial, with Justice Minister Marat Kayipov, for example, reminding the press that the forum enjoyed no legal standing whatsoever. However, opposition politician Turganaliev justified holding the event on the grounds that obtaining justice through normal channels had proved impossible. Today, 99.9 per cent of the power resides with a president who is guilty of these events, Turgunaliev told the tribunal. Therefore, under the current government it is impossible to obtain justice on this matter. Ayjigit Beyshebaev, son of Satimbay Urkunbaev, one of the protesters who were shot dead, told IWPR he no longer placed any faith in official probes. Let this government leave the case alone, he said. It isnt capable of conducting an objective investigation. We have to hope this will be done by a new government one day. Apart from the court hearings, the event also served as a focus for remembering the dead. Before the trial got under way, a service of commemoration took place near a monument erected in memory of the dead demonstrators. Local officials including current Jalalabad governor Koshbay Masirov and senior police officers attended the prayers. Abdumomun Mamaraimov is an IWPR contributor in Jalalabad. KAZAK BUILDERS AT RISK FROM POOR SAFETY STANDARDS Construction companies are cutting corners when it comes to safety standards and workers are suffering more accidents as a result. By Natalya Napolskaya in Almaty Marat no longer dreams of making a decent living for his poor family. After coming to the Kazak capital Astana to find a job, he started working for a company handling a number of large construction projects. But Marats plans ended in catastrophe. After a pile of earth was dropped on top of him by mistake, he was left badly injured, suffering severe trauma to the spinal cord. One-and-a-half years on, virtually paralysed, the young man lives with his mother in a small wagon on the outskirts of the city. A commission ruled that his employer was responsible for his injuries, but because he was not covered by an insurance policy, he is not eligible for continuing support and his long-term prospects look dim. They helped me get treatment, Marat said of the building firm. But my period of treatment as an in-patient in hospital is over and I still need a lot more help. Clinics wont admit me because Im not eligible for free treatment, since the injury was inflicted by a private company. And all the money that I and my mother saved has now gone. Marats story is typical of many construction workers in Kazakstan who are facing a life of disablement with no health insurance to fall back on. An increase in the number of workers killed or injured on construction sites in Kazakstan is being blamed on companies flouting safety standards in the rush to put up buildings. Experts say the building boom that has enveloped Kazakstan in recent years has encouraged firms to use unsafe or old equipment and hire people with no skills or experience. Official figures show that within the last six months, 12 workers died and more than 70 were injured on construction sites in Astana alone. In Kazakstan as a whole, 133 construction workers died and 633 received injuries last year. The dead accounted for nearly a third of the 414 people killed in work-related accidents. Oleg Sidorov, an Almaty-based commentator, highlights two main reasons for the problem corruption and a culture of negligence on the part of construction companies. It is hard to get permission to use low-quality construction equipment but if you have enough money, you can get all the official stamps and signatures you need to circumvent the law, he explained. Sidorov said that in their attempts to cut their wage bills, construction companies routinely hire illegal workers, many of them unskilled labourers from outside Kazakstan. They get paid less than the going rate, and receive no employment benefits or health insurance. If they take on a construction worker who has recently come from Tajikistan and whos never even heard about safety measures, the risks to his life and health increase accordingly, Sidorov noted. Murat Shynybaev has been working in the construction industry for many years. As chief engineer at the Arsenal factory, he says he is well aware that the responsibility for the safety of his staff lies squarely on his shoulders. Our boys do one of the most dangerous jobs in the construction business, which is erecting steel structures, Shynbaev said. We observe all the construction regulations and standards. You cant take shortcuts with the lives of your workers theyre not bits of iron you can replace if they break. Not everyone is so conscientious. The owner of one small construction company told IWPR it was just too expensive to follow all the safety regulations. To observe all the rules, my company would have to pay a pretty penny, said this businessman, who did not want to be named. Its expensive to hire safety experts, and its also much cheaper to use construction equipment that has passed its use-by date rather than buy new stuff. Alexandr Klimov, head of the industrial safety department for Almaty, Kazakstans second city and commercial capital, says that over the last decade, training for builders and engineers has been neglected, and this has led to many avoidable accidents. We even see it in our own organisation, so you can guess what the building sites are like, he said. We get fine young lads coming to work for us, but theyre not trained workers and theyve no experience in the industry. But we take them anyway because we cant get the specialists. Klimov said it was not the machinery that was dangerous so much as the human factor too many workers lacked the skills to operate the equipment. According to the government department for labour and welfare, everyone who is injured is entitled to compensation. It is also mandatory for workers to be insured against accidents. Oleg Karabut, head of the department, says construction companies should have no interest in concealing in the workplace accidents, as they are obliged by law to insure all their workers, and the insurance companies will pay for medical treatment. Insurance is obligatory and that means when people are incapacitated through injury, they get paid, and if they die, their dependents will be paid, Karabut said. But of course this does not apply to the almost countless illegal workers employed on sites throughout Kazakstan. Few of them are aware that their employers are supposed to insure them against accidents. Some businesses find it works out cheaper just to pay fines for not insuring their workers than to register their staff with insurance companies. One businessman in the construction industry claimed he was unaware he was required to insure his workers. I didnt know this was mandatory in our country, he said. The government should give us more information about it. Natalya Napolskaya is an IWPR-trained journalist in Almaty. TURKMENISTAN TO TACKLE POPULATION DECLINE It will take more than special awards to encourage families to have more children. By IWPR staff in Central Asia Alarmed at falling birth rates, officials in Turkmenistan are putting new measures to encourage people to have more children. Analysts say the government needs to focus on basic healthcare and welfare provision if it is to stem the population decline. On March 5, President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov launched a new award called Ene Mahri or Mothers Tenderness, to be awarded to women who give birth to and raise eight or more children. The award is reminiscent of similar titles conferred on mothers with many children in the Soviet era, and comes with similar fringe benefits free utilities and public transport, for example. The authorities simultaneously announced they were drafting a new law to offer greater benefits to mothers in general. It is not, however, clear what these will consist of. One senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said action was being taken to reverse demographic trends that were catastrophic. In recent years, theres been a significant drop in the birthrate, and thats plain even to the casual observer, said the official. Accurate recent statistics on birthrates are hard to come by in this secretive and authoritarian state. In 2003, the national statistics agency reported that the population had reached 6.2 million, an increase of 5.2 per cent on the previous year. But independent observers have cast doubt on those figures. Research published in 2006 on the opposition website tm-iskra.org suggested that the country was undergoing depopulation, in that more people were dying than being born. The study attributed this to the low level of state welfare provision for mothers and children, and problems in accessing healthcare services. Interviews suggest that the fees and bribes that have to be paid to get medical treatment do seem to be a disincentive to young families raising children. One young woman from Dashoguz in northern Turkmenistan said she had been forced to pay the equivalent of 300 US dollars to get a qualified doctor to assist her in childbirth. She was sent home from hospital the very next day and received no postnatal treatment. I am not going to have any more children, she concluded. Health ministry officials, speaking off the record, admit that corruption is rampant. One official told IWPR that many obstetricians tried to persuade pregnant women to have caesarian sections, simply because the operation is expensive and they earn more money that way. The price of services in maternity hospitals will continue to grow, since life is expensive and doctors want to earn money, she said. Another health official told IWPR the government could usefully restore the old network of rural midwives, who used to provide services free of charge. The midwife centres were closed in 2003 on the orders of Berdymuhammedovs predecessor as president, the authoritarian Saparmurat Niazov. Since then, many women in rural areas have delivered babies at home, increasing the risk to both mother and child. Even prior to the abolition of midwives, World Health Organisation data for 2002 indicated that 55 out of 1,000 children in Turkmenistan dies before the age of five. This is one of the worst rates in the entire Asia-Pacific region, exceeded only by Burma, Cambodia and Afghanistan. Annagul, who lives in the capital Ashgabat and has several children, says the government needs to ensure medical services for women in childbirth are free in practice as well as in theory. It should also, she says, increase benefits for pregnant mothers and grant them a monthly allowance for the period when their children are young. She feels unrewarded for staying at home and raising future citizens of the state. We eat poorly - soup in the day, while in the evening we have bread with jam from the apples growing near our house, she said. In Annaguls opinion, if the authorities want the next generation to be healthy, they need to take drastic measures to increase the birth rate and stop talking about benefits that do not exist in reality. Under the current legal code on welfare dating from July 2007, mothers are entitled to a monthly allowance of 250,000 manats (48 dollars at the official exchange rate) until children reach adulthood and a one-off payment of 500,000 manats after the birth of their first and second child. A third child merits a one-off payment of one million mantas, with two million for the fourth. Several women who had received these benefits said they did not cover much beyond the basic expenses incurred by having children, and did not compensate for the loss of their wages while they were off work. Moreover, most of those interviewed said they had not even received the maternity benefits due them, and had not heard that they were entitled to a monthly allowance until their children were adults. It is not just mothers, of course, who complain of the expense of maintaining a family. One 32-year-old unemployed man from Tejen, a small town in southeastern Turkmenistan, said it was too costly to have children these days. How can you have children now? he asked. Schools, books, all of it costs a lot. Every day we have the problem of how to feed them. Tajigul Begmedova, chair of the Bulgaria-based Turkmen Helsinki Fund for Human Rights, said turning around the demographics would be difficult given the lack of reliable statistics. Even government officials do not have sensible information about the price of an average consumer basket, living standards and inflation. Sources in the Ministry of Social Security told us that when the new law [on maternity support] was being drafted, they ran into difficulties because they were unable to calculate the scale and scope of the various benefits that are going to be offered, said Begmedova. Annadurdy Khajiev, an independent economic analyst in the diaspora, said the authorities needed to develop a wide-ranging programme to boost the birth rate. First, he said, the government should conduct an accurate census, drafting in foreign specialists to help, and then it would be in a position to assess the scale of emigration and of mortality and birth rates. Mothers and children needed to be guaranteed priority access to health care benefits, and the government needed to unveil a package to help the mothers of large families and also single mothers, including free meals for schoolchildren. These and other benefits would cost a fair amount, but Khajiev insisted that they are well within reach for a country that is one of the worlds leading [natural gas] exporters. TAJIKS DISPUTE BENEFITS OF HUNTING Scientists warn that many species are under threat, as local communities have no stake in face extinction as a result of poorly regulated hunts and poachers. By Nafisa Pisarejeva in Dushanbe Ecologists in Tajikistan are warning that some wild animal species are under threat because local communities do not benefit from legal hunting and are forced by poverty to engage in poaching. Scientists presented a set of grim findings to a meeting on biodiversity and the effects of hunting, held in the Tajik capital Dushanbe in early March The meeting was organised jointly by Volunteers for Nature Preservation, a local non-government group, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Snow Leopard Trust, which lobbies on behalf of this highly endangered big cat. Tajikistan is an important country in terms of wildlife diversity, with over 90 per cent of its territory covered by great mountain ranges where some peaks tower over 7,000 metres. The diversity of the natural environment has allowed many rare species to survive here. Tajik scientists warn that many species have declined both in range and numbers in recent decades. At least 160 animal species are now under threat, in a country where tigers and local species of marmot and sturgeon have disappeared within the last 50 years. This year brought another blow - an abnormally cold and long winter that froze rivers and open stretches of water, killing rare cormorants, ducks, otters and jungle cats in national parks. Given the deteriorating habitat, scientists are voicing concern about the devastating effects of poaching, and complain that local communities have been given no stake in wildlife survival as they see none of the income the country earns from authorised hunting. Some fear the scale of commercial hunting is far larger than the authorities admit. Although the hunting industry is in theory subject to tight government controls, one Tajik environmentalist complained that no one even knew its true scale, because wealthy foreigners simply bribed officials in charge of nature conservation, and as a result, accurate records of the number of animals killed were not kept. Often its the institutions that are supposed to be responsible for preservation that are breaking the law or turning a blind eye by taking bribes from local and foreign hunters, the ecologist told IWPR. Tajikistan began allowing foreigners to go on big game hunts in the late Eighties, and the sport became more popular following independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Hunting is regulated by law and licensed by the State Committee for Preservation of Environment and Agriculture. The revenue from the sale of hunting licenses is supposed to go to the government, which should then set aside ten per cent for the national nature fund and another 40 per cent for community development. The remaining 50 per cent of is supposed to pay for the upkeep of reserves and national parks, on wages, vehicles and equipment for the wardens, and on warding off both poachers and wolves, which are regarded as their four-legged equivalent. The license income represents the sole funding source for nature conservation in the main hunting areas, such as the Murghab district of Badakhshan region. Badakhshan, a remote, high-altitude region in the southeast bordering on China and Afghanistan, now has several large hunting firms in operation. The area is home to the Pamir argali, also known as the Marco Polo sheep, which have been on the endangered list since the late 1980s. Hunters have long considered these sheep, with their superb curling horns, one of the top trophy animals. Rustam Muratov, from the nature management department of the Ministry of Agriculture, says managed hunting helped preserve the Marco Polo sheep during the Nineties, when the country was ravaged by civil war. In recent years, the population has risen to 14,000, from 10,000 in the late Eighties. The authorities allow a limited shoot that varies from year to year; last season it was 45. Alikhon Latifi, the Tajikistan coordinator for the Bonn Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, agrees that managed hunting helps wildlife stocks. Commercial companies work to preserve animals, because they have a interest in their survival, whereas the governments conservation bodies are not effective because they are starved of funds, personnel, vehicles and fuel, he said. According to Latifi, if areas inhabited by other endangered animals like the markhor wild goat, the Bukhara deer, the urial another sheep species were made available for private hunting tours, their future would look a lot brighter than it does now. Not everyone takes such a benign view of private game hunting. One independent expert from Dushanbe told IWPR that hunting at least in the form in which it currently exists in Tajikistan - benefited only hunting firms. He said local communities in the areas where hunting was allowed gained little or no income from the sport. The revenues from the international hunts are transferred to special accounts but no one knows how these funds are spent, he maintained. While wardens, hunters and scientists argue over the merits of managed hunting, there is no doubt that poaching is continuing to wreak havoc with such endangered species as the snow leopard, now down to about 4,500 animals worldwide, of which perhaps 200 live in Tajikistan. According to official statistics, poachers destroy around ten snow leopards, between 100 and 180 Siberian ibexes, 200 to 240 Tian Shan brown bears and 30 to 40 markhors. Latifi said the official poaching figures were a gross underestimate. He cited surveys compiled by local residents and the staff of hunting firms in the Murghab region, which indicated that poachers killed up to 1,000 argali a year. He also pointed the finger at the Tajik border guards who patrol the wildlife-rich mountain frontier with China and Afghanistan. Everybody knows ordinary people are not allowed across the [buffer-zone] line, which is why we blame the border guards, he said. Ibrahim Bobokalonov, from the government inspectorate for flora and fauna, said poachers faced disciplinary actions and fines. But most ecologists say that even when fines are imposed, they are insignificant when compared with the damage done and the money that poachers can earn. Whether much can do be done to stop the poachers remains to be seen, however. Bobokalonov is pessimistic, predicting that illegal hunting will remain widespread in mountain regions for the foreseeable future. Local communities are so poor that few people would pass up an opportunity to sell a high-value trophy or even just to get some free meat. Nafisa Pisarejeva is an IWPR contributor in Tajikistan. TAJIKS WITH HIV/AIDS SUFFER IN SILENCE Only when Tajikistan breaks down the walls of silence and prejudice surrounding HIV/AIDS can it hope to slow infection rates. By Jamila Majidova in Dushanbe Thirty-nine-year-old Vika, a junior nurse in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, shudders whenever she remembers the moment she had to tell her boss she was HIV-positive. She needed the day off for treatment and decided to tell her employers what was going on. The result was worse than she could have imagined. When they found out I was HIV-positive, my colleagues changed their attitude to me a lot, she recalled. I even overheard two of my colleagues saying people with HIV or AIDS should be rounded up and burned. Vika says her medical colleagues were far more hostile than the prisoners she encountered in jail, where she once served a sentence for drug abuse. Now she volunteers as an HIV/AIDS awareness activist, but she is still wary of speaking openly about her disease. Ironically, her reluctance to talk about her status only deepened when she attended a workshop last year on the subject of the stigma faced by HIV-infected people. I was shocked when I found out what most members of society really thought of people like me, she said. RELENTLESS SPREAD Tajikistan is struggling to cope with the slow but steady spread of HIV/AIDS, hindered not only by the poverty of its the medical service but also by conservative moral attitudes which encourage shame and secrecy. According to recent data, there are just over 1,000 officially confirmed cases of HIV in Tajikistan. The disease is clearly picking up speed - 2007 saw 339 new cases, almost eight times the number recorded in 2001. In six out of ten cases, the infection is spread through the use of contaminated needles. The figures may only be the tip of the iceberg, however, and many medics believe the real number of infected people is much higher. HIV infection rates are marching upwards across Central Asia, spurred on by poor healthcare systems, an increasingly mobile population, and rising drug use in a region that is a major transit route for Afghan heroin. (See HIV Shadow Lengthens Over South Kyrgyzstan, (RCA No. 533, 21-Feb-08.) One doctor working on HIV/AIDS issues in Tajikistan said the poor state of health records in the country meant no one could determine the exact number of HIV-positive people. Young people are being diagnosed as dying from cancer, tuberculosis and other diseases but it could well be AIDS thats to blame; no one checked their status, he said. Pulod Jamolov knows from personal experience what it is like to live with HIV, and what treatment such people can expect. To improve the life of HIV-positive people and help them defend their rights, he started up a group calling itself SPIN PLUS, a community of HIV-positive drug addicts and people with type-C hepatitis. I want to help people living with HIV and AIDS and offer them moral support, he explained. One member of SPIN PLUS is Mumin (not his real name), who was refused treatment at his local addiction clinic after admitting his HIV status. The clinics medical personnel changed their attitude and allowed me to be admitted to the hospital for treatment only after SPIN PLUS insisted they give me a written refusal, Mumin says. Savsan is another beneficiary of SPIN PLUSs lobbying, which secured her the hospital operation she needed, which was initially refused when doctors found out she was HIV-positive. In theory, doctors have no right to withhold treatment from people with HIV or AIDS. A law on HIV/AIDS says state healthcare institutions are obliged to provide such people with the medicines and support they need, free of charge. But Jamolov says these rights exist only on paper. In reality, merely to receive free syringe, patients must submit a health certificate specifying whether they are HIV-positive. WOMEN PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE While the commonest infection route is via shared needle use among drug users, experts note an increase in the number of women infected by husbands returning from time spent away working as labour migrants. The risk of transmission from husband to wife is very high, notes Amonullo Ghoibov, secretary of the National Coordination Committee to Prevent and Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The mentality of the Tajik people, their culture and traditions, do not allow for an open discussion about sex education issues, HIV transmission routes and protection from infection, said Ghoibov. Many labour migrants get infected with HIV by casual sexual partners, as a result of their own ignorance about sexual hygiene, he adds. According to experts, 40 per cent of HIV-positive people in Tajikistan are labour migrants, many of whom have picked up the infection working abroad. Matluba Rahmonova, head of Tajikistans National AIDS Centre, says the wives of these men are in a parlous condition. Traditional gender stereotypes and the subordinate status of women mean few of them get any information on sexual health and reproductive issues, let alone HIV prevention, she says. As a result, there is also a high rate of transmission from mother to child. The first case of HIV infection among pregnant women was recorded only in 2005, and now we have 28 HIV-positive pregnant women, she said. Rahmonova says research carried out by the AIDS Centre at gynaecology clinics in Dushanbe confirms that while some of the women are drug users, a growing number are the wives of labour migrants. Many are in shock when they find out about their HIV-positive status, she continued. Their relatives start to blame them for sins they have not committed. Manija Haitova, director of the HIV/AIDS Centre for Mental Health, agrees that more and more woman are becoming vulnerable the infection. Many get HIV from their husbands because they dont dare to insist that their husbands get tested for HIV or use condoms, she said. Gulbis story typifies how the infection is often transmitted. Her husband spent four years working abroad, and on one of his trips home, he passed on the virus to her. It was only by accident that she found out she was infected, when she took a blood test while being treated for another illness. Gulbi laments that if she had only known more about the disease, and about the ways it could be transmitted, she would have been more demanding. I was afraid to talk about HIV/AIDS with anyone, Gulbi recalls. Even now, I dont dare to talk about it with strangers so that people dont condemn me. But I do have to reveal my status in certain places to get the medical support and drugs I need. TRADITIONAL VALUES ENCOURAGE SILENCE HIV/AIDS experts complain that the culture of secrecy surrounding the virus is perpetuated by negative stereotypes that are widespread in society. HIV infection and AIDS are commonly believed to be exclusive to drug addicts and people leading a sexually promiscuous lifestyle. This explains why HIV-positive people encounter such hostility, said Dr Ghoibov. People avoid contact with HIV-positive people, believing they can [easily] transmit their infection, though in fact it is easier to catch hepatitis-C, he said. Such stigmatisation is a consequence of the low level of awareness, even among trained medics, about how HIV/AIDS can be transmitted. Haitova said ignorance about HIV in the medical system remains shockingly widespread, mentioning an example she heard about last year, when a young HIV-positive woman was refused help by her own doctor when she went into labour. She would have been entitled to bring a lawsuit against her gynaecologist, said Haitova. But she did not want to make her HIV status known and become an object of reproach, so she just went to another doctor. PREJUDICE AMONG DOCTORS AND TEACHERS To shed light on the various forms of discrimination experienced by HIV-positive people, Tajikistans Centre for Strategic Studies, working with UNAIDS, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, carried out the first national research on the subject in 2007. The results were illuminating and showed that HIV-positive children often suffered the worst forms of stigma. Disappointingly, the survey showed that prejudice against HIV-infected children was common among both doctors and teachers, who might have been expected to know better. About half of all secondary school teachers in the country believed HIV-positive children should not be allowed to share classes with others, while 60 per cent of doctors would not want their own children to have any contact with HIV-positive children. More than 60 per cent of the medics in the poll did not believe HIV-positive staff should be allowed to work in healthcare institutions, either. The vast majority of clerics were against HIV-positive people holding religious posts. Most of the respondents said they would not go to an HIV-positive doctor for treatment. Of course, not all doctors, dentists or teachers are as ill-informed as this. Mehrobon Sultanov, head of a dental practice in Dushanbe, said he did not believe his colleagues would turn away HIV-positive patients. We do not have the right to discriminate against an HIV-positive person, he said. They have the same rights as everyone else. We just need to be hygienic and ensure the instruments are sterilised. A salesman at one of the main chemists shops in the capital also told IWPR he thought it unethical to ask customers about their HIV status. ENDING THE CULTURE OF SILENCE Such attitudes are, however, still the exception rather than the norm in Tajikistan. Our society is not ready to accept HIV-positive people, and as a result they are exposed to a double stigma from society and from themselves, said Dr Haitova. This stigma applies not only to sufferers but to their families, too. She continued, Even when they know their rights, HIV-positive people often dont use them because they fear revealing their status. The discrimination suffered by HIV-positive people needs to be tackled through wide-ranging education programmes that target various sectors of society, experts say. According to Haitova, awareness-raising campaigns should encourage people to break down the wall of silence and clear away the barriers to effective prevention and treatment for HIV/AIDS. Only by declaring war on stigma and discrimination is it going to be possible to work on a solution of the problems that arise because of HIV/AIDS, she concluded. Jamila Majidova is an IWPR-trained journalist in Dushanbe HIV Shadow Lengthens Over South Kyrgyzstan. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA provides the international community with a unique insiders' perspective on the region. Using our network of local journalists, the service publishes news and analysis from across Central Asia on a weekly basis. The service forms part of IWPR's Central Asia Project based in Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and London, which supports media development and encourages better local and international understanding of the region. IWPR's Reporting Central Asia is supported by the Global Conflict Prevention Pool of UK government and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The opinions expressed in Reporting Central Asia are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. 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