Law enforcement and Harm Reduction in practice: experiences from Kyrgyzstan

Aleksandr Zelichenko,Director of Public Fund

Central-Asian Center on Drug Policy, Police Colonel, PhDVienna, July 2010.

• In last few years Kyrgyzstan accumulated good practical experience in cooperation of police, governmental, non-governmental organizations and local communities in HR activities.

• But this active police involvement had been preceded by the decade-long educational campaign against “police illiteracy” in the problem.

• First steps in police training in basic knowledge on HIV/AIDS nature, its prevention, and tolerant attitude to the injected drug users - the major “risk group” that time and now - had been made in the late 1990th by members of international organizations “Doctors sans frontiers” and “Harm Reduction”.

• The process started in Osh – the city in the south region of Kyrgyzstan that still maintains the position of the center of Afghan drug–traffic and thus, the area of the highest rate of injected heroin users. That time the first in republic HIV – infected “via the tip of the needle” patients had been detected there, in the south.

• Later on, in 2000-2001 the HIV-service NGOs and non-governmental organizations, helping the sex-workers, joined the process of the “police education”.

• The leaders of those organizations completed TOT courses (training of trainers) and started to educate the police with special focus on the units in most probable direct contact with HIV/AIDS problem – district police, police inspection for juvenile offenders, patrol forces, road police...

• The seminars mostly concentrated on the problems of sex-worker’s and injected drug user’s human rights violation, although included some information about infection diseases, roots of invasion and ways for prevention.

• It is important to mention that, due to their specific professional experience, mentality, knowledge and skills obtained in the Police Schools, the police officers could hardly accept the drug users and sex workers, even former, in capacity of trainers...

• That is why, after number of special seminars for trainers, the local police officers, some of them – the high ranked police authorities, also had been involved into the teaching process.

• The next step – the educating institutions of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Interior started to develop and implement the special training programs.

• A good example is 36-hours training course on HIV/AIDS, other common infections (e.g. tuberculosis, hepatitis С) and ways of invasion prevention, included into the curriculum of Bishkek Police Academy since 2004.

• The Medical Department of MIA also joined the process of police staff educating and actively distribute knowledge about HIV/AIDS, other sexual transmitted diseases, ways of prevention.

• They scheduled the special site visits to the police stations to give lectures and seminars, using video materials, poster presentations, and other teaching aids.

• All these lessons are included into the service training plan; the curriculum and timetable are approved by the chief of the city or regional police station.

• In the year 2005 the police newspapers started to publish the corresponding materials in Russian and Kyrgyz languages.

• Almost each weekly issue included digests of the international Mass-Media on the problem and articles by specialists in infectious diseases, science of laws and police practice aimed to address needs in police education.

• In 2005 in support of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Interior application, the Open Society Institution granted US$40,000 and sponsored the project aimed on the developing the training course in the Police Academy of MIA.

• The project envisages training for police cadets and acting officers (including trainees from other republics) in Harm Reduction philosophy and practice.

• As it becomes clear from the course title, it is not limited by the general, basic principles of HIV prevention, although this is the large component of the program.

• The ultimate goal is to teach the police community in new approaches, to develop the tolerant attitude towards drug-users, HIV – infected people and sex-workers.

• The training course is developed in the context of the police reforming, with great input and active participation of NGOs and civil society, assigned representatives to the working group. The course materials had been regularly reviewed and evaluated on the round tabled with representatives of civil society and NGOs.

• In the framework of the project a textbook, “Legal Basis of Harm Reduction Theory and Practice” was published in March 2009 by the group of experts. The special goal of this publication is to place the Harm Reduction approaches to the scientific level by developing a methodological base.

• Translation of the textbook into Kyrgyz and English languages is in our nearest plans.• The full text in Russian you can find on the LEAHRN website:

http://www.leahrn.ru/

• Basing on «The National Act on HIV/AIDS Prevention», the Ministry of Interior Affairs issued the second edition of «Instruction for Police Forces for HIV/AIDS prevention in vulnerable groups of population». I’d like to stress especially «the vulnerable groups of population» (VGP), who delegated representatives into the working group on the “Instruction” design.

• The Instruction approved by Ministry of Interior order, so the Instruction should be subject for compulsory implementation

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