October 20, 2006: I Care for Every Child, What About You?Children with HIV Are Hampered by Society’s Attitude, Not the Disease “Imagine that your child is studying next to a child with HIV? What would you do? Of course, try to separate them somehow! But suspending HIV positive child from school is forbidden by law. I don’t see a way out of this situation at this school but I am definitely sure that I don’t want my child to study in the same class as a child with HIV.” A new campaign entitled “I Care About Every Child!” is aimed at changing these typically biased attitudes to HIV. The face of the campaign is Oleg Gazmanov, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. “It is terrifying even to think that we adults make children suffer - said Mr. Gazmanov, “Children need our support. I hope, that my participation in the campaign will contribute to the efforts on changing society's attitude to children and parents facing the HIV problem.” The “I Care . . .” campaign, which is run by Focus Media and UNICEF, includes a video spots, posters, information booklets and postcards. All the materials promote the idea of accepting children with HIV as regular members of society and realizing the need to integrate such children into children’s institutions such as kinder gardens and schools. Children with HIV have every chance for a long and fulfilling life if they get the treatment they need. The only thing that stays in the way of their development is our attitude - the attitude of adults. “I have tried three times to get my child into a kinder garden, - says Natalia, 24 years old, HIV positive. We were rudely rebuked by the head, who told me, “Get away from here, don’t spread your disease, why have you come here, to the kinder garden?!” According to the FOCUS-MEDIA Foundation survey, conducted by the “ROMIR Monitoring” in 2005 in 10 regions of Russian Federation, 60% of respondents would prefer that their child is separate from HIV-positive peers. 54% are more or less sure that government should isolate all HIV-positive people from society. In fact, children are often discriminated against just because they are born to HIV-positive mothers, not even knowing the child’s HIV status. In Russia there are more than 350,000 people living with HIV, 80% of them are younger than 30. Four out of ten new cases of infections are among women. The number of children born to HIV positive mothers is steadily climbing. Today there are about 30,000 of them. Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been well studied. It is certain that it is not transmitted in normal household settings, through communication, embraces, and kisses. Even fighting among children, broken noses and scraped knees do not give real cause for alarm. The virus can only be transmitted when infected blood gets into blood flow of another person. It is very unusual for this to happen by accident. There have been no recorded cases of HIV transmission during playing or studying. Lately, however, some attitudes towards people with HIV have started to change. In Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, children rejected by their HIV positive parents have found new families; some HIV positive children are already attending kinder gardens and schools. But they are all afraid of disclosing both their status and that of their parents. “Society’s maturity has always been measured by its attitude to children and elderly, - said Oxana Barkalova, Manager of the FOCUS MEDIA Foundation, - Russia is striving to become equal to other major developed countries, therefore its society has to learn to treat people with HIV/AIDS, in particular children, just like the rest of society”. The “I Care About Every Child” campaign’s internet site has been launched – www.2live.ru. It contains the latest news, campaign materials, real life stories, surveys. Every visitor can ask a question on HIV/AIDS to an expert or receive counseling. For additional information please contact:
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