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UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees |
Assistance to Nizhny NovgorodNizhny Novgorod is another new region where UNHCR will provide assistance to forced migrants. By April 1, 1999 the Nizhny Novgorod RMS has registered 16,347 forced migrants the majority of whom (21 per cent) have arrived in the region from Kazakhstan. UNHCR assistance will be provided to the Sechenovsky district and will include rehabilitation of the secondary school in the village of Samarino and construction of a well there and rehabilitation of the social centre in the compact settlement Obukhovka. |
Agreement with Altai TerritoryOn July 8, UNHCR concluded an Agreement with the Altai Territory Regional Migration Service for the provision of assistance to forced migrants and to the development of the capacity of the RMS. At the moment, the Altai Territory receives 6.5 per cent of all migrants arriving to the Russian Federation, out of which 60 per cent arrive from Kazakhstan, with which the Altai Territory has common border, and some 30 per cent come from the republics of Central Asia (primarily Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan). By May 31, 1999 some 44,746 persons were registered as forced migrants in the Territory. The Agreement signed includes the provision of assistance to the Rubtsovsk Temporary Accommodation Centre which has accepted 1,129 persons since November 1996, the purchase of a school bus for children living in the compact settlement of Novy and in the village of Berezovka of the Pervomaysky district, the purchase of a water tank for the compact settlement Saratovka of the Rubtsovsk district, the provision of school textbooks for forced migrant children in the city of Rubtsovsk as well as some office equipment for the Altai RMS and its Rubtsovsk branch. This is a first step in the UNHCR assistance programme in the region which is planned to be developed following the UNHCR working mission undertaken on July 6–11,1999.
Cooperation with North Ossetia-AlaniaOn July 6, 1999, the UNHCR signed an agreement with the Migration Services of North Ossetia-Alania in order to provide logistical support to the voluntary repatriation of some 2,400 refugees (600 families) to South Ossetia and Georgia proper. The Refugee and IDP population of North Ossetia-Alania numbered some 48,000 persons. Of this number, 29,484 are refugees from Georgia (including South Ossetia) were registered with the Regional Migration Services (RMS). The vast majority of these refugees are ethnic Ossets from Georgia proper who fled the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict. The UNHCR will support the North Ossetian authorities in providing transport and logistical arrangements for the return of repatriants and their belongings from North Ossetia to South Ossetia and Georgia proper. Moreover, on July 6, 1999, the UNHCR reached an agreement with the Ministry of Nationalities and External Affairs of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania to facilitate the provision of medical services to the children of refugees and IDPs in the North Caucasus, in general and in North Ossetia, in particular. This will be done through the provision of essential medical equipment and rehabilitation of several sections of Regional Children’s Hospital located inVladikavkaz.
Donors’ meetingOn July 1 a donor information sharing meeting was convened by UN Resident Coordinator, Christopher Carpenter, in Moscow. A meeting was attended by representatives of Austria, Denmark, European Union, Finland, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. The UN Country Team – OCHA, UNHCR, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO, UNAIDS, ILO, IOM, UNESCO and UNIC – presented plans for implementing the UN Inter-Agency Response Programme. Keeping in mind that the crises in the Balkans will draw considerable resources from the donor countries the main purpose of the meeting was to draw attention of the donor community to serious economic and social problems that might arise this coming winter in the Arctic regions, the Far East and some of the more economically depressed regions of Russia and to show how the UN system proposes to address these issues with donor support.
UNHCR Workshops
During the last week of June, a workshop for regional TV companies on migrants’ and refugees’ issues was held in Stavropol. It was attended by representatives of local TV companies from 16 regions : St. Petersburg, the Altay Territory, Voronezh, Saratov, Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, Belgorod, Samara, Lipetsk, Oryol, Perm, Rostov-on Don, Yekaterinburg, Volgograd, Orenburg and Stavropol. The majority of the participants were directors or editors of the news programmes. The participants were provided with information on migrants and refugees in the Russian Federation and in the Stavropol Territory in particular. |
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UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund |
Children Need Their Rights Simply to LiveIt is ten years in 1999 since the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) adopted its basic document - the Convention on the Rights of the Child. To mark this remarkable event, a booklet is being prepared that contains compositions and drawings by primary school pupils from one hundred countries. What do children of seven, eight or nine know about their rights? What are their cares and concerns? Do they have any idea of the Convention on the Rights of the Child drawn up by adults? To give answers to these and other questions pupils of a «Mother’s School» in Moscow have prepared compositions and drawings as part of a special UNICEF project. Here are some of the answers: «What rights do you know and enjoy?» Tanya Reshetova, 8, believes she has «the right to live a free life». «If I want to be friends with someone, I am. I have the right to voice my opinion, the right to study, to have a favorite lesson, a favorite name and a favorite seat.» Antonina Gromyko, 7, is positive she has the right to have wishes of her own (but not excessive), the right to study, to play different games, to take walks and read interesting books, to live in an apartment and enjoy life. A friend of hers, Yula Yankina, knows she has the right to study and stay with her grandmother during her summer vacations. Volodya Krapivin, 8, takes a philosophic attitude. «I want to have the right to live in my country and in my home. And no one can make me leave them. At the same time I may visit any place, any country, and come back whenever I choose.» «Do children need any rights and what for?» Masha Sokolovskaya, 7, and Alyosha Dudoladov, 8, agree they need their rights so as they may «read and watch television». Yura Linde, 8, is convinced a child needs his rights «to protect himself from being abused». And, certainly, the children have given a serious thought to the question of freedom. Yura Linde wrote the following: «I believe freedom is an opportunity to fulfil oneself with no one interfering. I think I’m free in my home but within limits. I live with my mother, and her freedom often restricts mine. I do all I can to find a common language with my mother. We are friends with other children at school. I don’t like quarrels and injustice. I think my freedom at school implies a creative attitude towards studies. It’s not that I have an equal interest in all subjects. I think everyone should be free to work for the benefit of others.» Yura’s classmate, Sergei Kuritsyn, knows that «freedom means that no one can infringe on your rights. If you interfere with other people’s freedom, you will be treated in the same way. So don’t interfere with other people’s freedom!» A second-grader, Yula Zhukova, put her idea of the issue in a very simple way: «The rights are needed to live.» As the children study themselves and the world around, they study democracy, respect for other people and freedom in its every aspect. They watch the grown-ups and make their own clear-cut conclusions. This suggests that grownups should make their conclusions too. We would like to know what these concepts mean to children in other countries, with different cultures and traditions. Compositions have already been written by pupils in Yemen, Syria, Cape Verde, and Greece. The booklet will be printed in Barcelona.
Be Kind to Your BabyChildren’s welfare is the concern of adults. All the more so if a child has just come into the world and is as yet quite unawares of his rights (and responsibilities!). This explains why UNICEF has been making such energetic efforts to carry out the project that propagates the advantages of breast-feeding in order to restore the prestige of natural breast-feeding. There would have been no need for the project if in past decades we had not witnessed the successful propagation of the philosophy of artificial mixtures. As a result, we now have to overcome the resistance and inertia of both physicians and young mothers. «UNICEF with its project aimed at promoting and encouraging breast-feeding in the Russian Federation is helping us a lot» says V. Lomovskikh, Deputy Chairman of the Health Committee of the Volgograd Region Administration in charge of the matters of maternal and infant care. «Since we launched the project in March, 1998, we have brought about marked changes. The project has been effective. This is testified by a drop in the number of purulent-septic cases, which is 50% among the newborn and 40% among women. The growth in the number of cases among one-year-olds has been checked. This year for the first time we have seen negative dynamics in the number of intestinal infection cases. All this has been achieved because many women have chosen to breast-feed their babies. Only five years ago a mere 3% of the newborn stayed with their mothers, in 1999 their number has reached 96%! Volgograd Region boasts a total of more than fifteen hundred pediatricians and obstetricians-gynecologists, including 300 who have already taken the special WHO/UNICEF 40-hour course «Breast-Feeding Advising». All the rest may attend the specialized Centre for Maternal and Infant Care, which opened in Volgograd on July 19, 1999, with UNICEF’s assistance. The Centre will focus on training medical personnel according to the WHO/UNICEF breast-feeding methods. One course in Volgograd and two in Volgograd Region have been scheduled for September. |
A workshop entitled « Freedom of Movement and the Right to Choose a place
of Residence in Russia» was held by UNHCR in Sochi on 8-9 July for representatives of
Regional Prosecutors. The participants discussed regional legal acts on registration and
their correspondence to federal law and rulings of the Constitutional Court. Some 45
persons from 10 regions participated.