Throughout the world HIV infection prevalence among prisoners is usually much higher than among the population as a whole. This situation is often follow by and worsened with high levels of occurrence of other infectious diseases, such as hepatitis and tuberculosis. Generally recognized principles according to which prisons and prisoners remain to be part of whole society imply that threat of HIV for health of prisoners and for health of population outside prisons are inseparably associated with each other and therefore require coordinated actions. Despite such conditions, some countries of Central Asia have not started implementation of harm reduction programs in prisons yet and have not reached level of medical and sanitary service in prisons equivalent to levels of such services provided for whole population. This creates unsafe environment for health of prisoners, workers of prison and wider population.
Overly frequent application of imprisonment to drug users raises special concern. In many countries the significant percent of prisoners are those condemned for law violations directly connected with the use of drugs by themselves (i.e. those who are imprisoned for possession of small amount of drugs for personal use, condemned for minor offences done only for satisfaction of their needs for drug usage due to their addictive behavior). Imprisonment of large number of drug users enhances the likelihood of drugs use in prisons and, in consequence, increases the application of risky injection methods and risk of HIV transmission.
Although prison administration plays significant role in implementation of effective measures and strategies on HIV/AIDS Control, the solution of this problem also demands cooperation and joint actions that unite mandates and duties of various local, national and international stakeholders. In this context, Central Asian Harm Reduction Training and Information Center in Kyrgyzstan with support of Central Asia AIDS Control Project is conducting Regional seminar on advocacy of harm reduction programs for representatives of law enforcement agencies (penal systems and internal affairs bodies) of Central Asia region in a Bishkek from November 30th through December 3rd, 2009.
Objective of this seminar is familiarizing participants with principles and practice of harm reduction that relates to drug use and discussion of issues of cooperation between agencies for effective implementation of harm reduction programs in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. |
