I. Children's Advocate Alevtina Aparina

On November 11 Alevtina Aparina, chairwoman of the Committee on Women, Children & the Family, held a press conference at the Duma offices. The theme of the conference was "Can a government be considered healthy if its children are sick?"

According to data from the Committee on Women, Children & the Family, Russia is currently faced with a critical demographic situation: the number of the population under sixteen years old has dropped by 2.5 million compared to population statistics from 1992; for children under five, the population has decreased by 3 million since 1992. The birth rate for today's children is drastically lower than that of their parent's generation, while the infant mortality rate in Russia is over three times higher than in Western Europe. For every 1000 children born in 1996, there were 17 deaths in the first year of life--and many of the surviving children cannot be considered truly healthy. According to figures given by the organization "Women for the Health of the Nation," more than fifty percent of Russia's school-age children have a chronic illness or have had a serious childhood disease. For example, in the past five years, the number of children with tuberculosis has risen by three times.

In addition, Aparina presented the results of an investigation carried out by the Ministries of Public Health and Internal Affairs, together with the Committee on Women, Children & the Family. Among the facts revealed: more than one million children in Russia are considered disabled (with 150,000 of them classified as abandoned by their parents); the number of children characterized as developmentally disabled has grown by twenty times in the past ten years; and 12 million Russian children are inadequately nourished.

Aparina, however, sees positive developments in the legislature that could help improve the situation of Russia's children. The Committee on Women, Children & the Family has formed a working group that is drafting a law "On the protection of children's health," and is contributing to the presidential program, "Children of Russia."

Contact telephone: 292-1978 (Committee on Women, Children & the Family)

II. Environmental Activists Travel to Japan by Train

November 12 marked the beginning of an unprecedented event in the history of the environmental movement. More than thirty environmental activists from England, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Germany, Finland, Georgia, Ukraine, the United States and Russia boarded a train in Novosibirsk, heading towards Japan. The activists' final destination will be Kyoto, Japan, where an international conference on global warming will take place December 1-14. At all the stops along the route to Kyoto, the passengers on the so-called "agit-train" will hold seminars and rallies in an attempt to bring public attention to the issue of global warming. The Russian representatives on board the agit-train are ecologists from Novosibirsk--members of Siberian Ecological Foundation and the Institute for Social-Economic Relations.

Scientists have found that one of the many factors contributing to global warming is gas emitted from airplanes. As a consequence, the activists decided to forego a plane trip to Kyoto and take the train instead. "Of course, no one is asking for people to give up convenient and easy means of modern transportation," stated Dietrich Brothagen, a physicist from Germany who is taking part in the event, "but rather to comprehend the dangers that result from such conveniences."

According to data from a United Nation's commission on global warming, serious climate changes are already occuring. The causes of global warming range from the "greenhouse" effect of burning fossil fuels to the decimation of forests around the world. Evidence of the negative effects of climate change on the environment are already apparent--cruel droughts in one part of the world, floods and tropical storms in another part. Experts believe that if drastic measures aren't implemented soon, the results of global warming will turn out to be catastrophic for the planet.

III. Memorial Society of Ekaterinburg Publishes Book to Honor Victims of Political Repression

"The Memory of Grief" was published by the Memorial Society, a human rights group in Ekaterinburg. The author of the book is Aleksandr Nosov, an economist and former political prisoner. Nosov researched government archives to find out information about the eighteen thousand political prisoners who are buried outside of Ekaterinburg. Among the GULAG victims were children and the elderly. Sometimes entire families were victims of repression. Nosov regretted that the limited size of the book didn't afford him the opportunity to publish a comprehensive list of all the Ekaterinburg victims about whom he found information.

Contact telephone: (3432) 51-4227 (Memorial Society)

IV. Housing Reform Fails to Meet Needs of the People, Say Members of the Property Owners' Union

On November 11 and 12 the All-Russian Center for Economic Development held a conference in Moscow entitled, "Housing Reform--Strategies for the 21st Century." Attendees at the conference included employees from the communal housing administration, NGO members, and local government representatives from across Russia--from Kaliningrad to Chukotki. Natalia Fonareva, from the federal Anti-Monopoly Committee, and Leonid Chernyshov, from the Department of Construction, also attended the conference.

In an interview with an ASI correspondent, the president of the Property Owners' Union, German Lomtev, said that housing reform is progressing slowly due to the fact that it is far-removed from the real needs and wants of Russian citizens and relies heavily on the American model. "Property owners' associations have been successful in the United States because of the large numbers of private homeowners there. But in Russia, privatization of housing exists largely on paper. It's the government--not private citizens--who continues to own the lion's share of housing," states Lomtev. "The majority of people don't own their apartments, but rent them. Thus, we need some sort of renter's union like they have in Sweden."

According to Leonid Chernyshov, housing reform has different success rates in different regions. The speed and results of reform depend on the extent to which the regional administration understands its importance. In Ryazan, Samara, and Novgorod oblasts, where government-devised housing reform concepts and documents were implemented from the beginning, good results are appearing--competition within the housing sector is flourishing, resulting in higher quality housing services, and more efficient use of residential water and electricity. However, in several oblasts (notably Tula and Bryanskoi), the local administration has failed to adequately educate citizens about housing reforms. Consequently, the population there equates "reform" with "higher prices." Meanwhile, the sewer systems are falling into disrepair, heating systems are becoming dilapidated, elevators are out of order, and citizens are hostages of their government's inaction.

V. Women from the Provinces Learn to Fight for Their Rights

Recently a meeting was held at the Center for Women, Family and Gender Research, publicizing the results of a project aimed at women entitled, "Knowledge of our rights makes us stronger." The project concluded with a series of seminars for women's organizations in Tver, Langepas, Podol'sk, Istr, and Dzerzhinskii--towns in the Podmoskovskii region. Seminar participants used the Russian version of a book originally written by American professor of human rights, Julie Mertus. The book, "Women's Rights are Human Rights," was adapted for use in Russia by Tatiana Zabelina and Evgenia Israelyan, directors of the Center for Women, Family and Gender Research.

"Judging by the opinions of the participants, the seminars had a practical result," said Tatiana Zabelina. "We realized that women in the provinces are more interested in the issue of their rights than Muscovite women. Our seminars took place in small towns, where students, teachers, Duma deputies, journalists, and representatives from the government all participated. As the seminars progressed, interest in women's issues and organizations grew. In several towns, the local administration even took responsibility for funding the seminar."

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