From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 8/26/2005 3:16 AM
Moscow's Muslim Community Looks for Help
By Sergei Borisov The Moscow News
The Muslim maternity home that was widely reported in the media has yet to be built
26.08.05 Friday
 
It is no secret that the demographic situation is deteriorating in Russia, and up until now the rest of the country was said to be the main loser. Now the time of the capital has come. An official at the Moscow Mayor's Office said that during the period of 2001 to 2004 the share of Russian children born in the capital dropped by 15 percent and made up only 55 percent of all newborn babies. These disturbing figures open the preamble of the Moscow city's migration program for 2005-2007.

Sergei Smidovich, head of the Moscow government's migration program, told reporters on August 2 that the situation is leading to a quick change in the ethnic structure of the capital's population. The existing ethnic balance could be broken, and neither Russians nor Muslims seem to be very interested in this development.

Smidovich fears Muscovites could grow less tolerant as a new demographic situation develops. Dwellers of the capital link negative attitudes to migrants first of all with their behavior, which doesn't correspond with Moscow's traditions, rise of crime, criminalization of business, and intensification of competition on the labor market.

What could make many intolerant people more intolerant are reports in mass media about the attempts to develop "an infrastructure" of the Muslim community, and more recently, about the establishment of a "Muslim maternity clinic." The truth is, however, there is no such clinic in Moscow.

What really exists is a program that gives women an opportunity to bear children in accordance with Sharia law. Also, Muslims who strictly observe Muslim rules are entitled to dental care.

These new opportunities are offered by the organization Al-Khak ("Justice"). There are some two million Muslims living in Moscow. One million of them are labor immigrants who came from other countries; many of them work here illegally. Women from Central Asia and the Caucasus don't have medical insurance and legal rights to get proper treatment. "Add to this their natural shyness and you'll understand why they do not attend maternity welfare clinics," leader of Al-Khak Kamilzhan Kalandarov told The Moscow News. Of a thousand Muslim women polled by his organization, 850 have never visited health centers.

Now even women with no Russian citizenship can receive treatment in Moscow's Maternity Clinic No. 15.

The chief doctor Vladimir Zaborsky, who supported the idea of Al-Khak, believes Islam's requirements for giving birth are simple. "The women don't demand much. There must be no male doctors present at birth, a naming ceremony must take place within seven days, and the women must observe a particular diet - no pork." Zaborsky thinks it is "a big, nice program" designed for poor women who come to Moscow from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the Caucasus. "They don't receive medical treatment, they are not registered at health centers," Zaborsky said. The maternity hospital was only part of the program, he added. The organization helps women receive examinations at maternity welfare clinics and get medical documents. This makes work easier for the doctors, as healthier women visit a maternity hospital after they are examined during pregnancy.

One such clinic is not enough, Zaborsky believes. But he strongly objects to calling the program "a Muslim maternity hospital," as many news outlets hurried to report. "It is not that 'a Muslim maternity hospital' is a bad thing, but the very word combination is absolute nonsense. There must not be Muslim, Buddhist or pagan maternity hospitals," he is convinced.

As medical institutions of urgent aid, they must help any woman regardless of her nationality. "Recently a Hindu woman gave birth to her child. So should we now write that our hospital is a Hindu one?" the chief doctor said.

By the way, no woman has so far taken advantage of this program at the clinic. All Muslim women are receiving treatment along with others. There are no separate wards at the maternal hospital. "Why should they be isolated?" Zaborsky asks.

Kalandarov also says that it would be wrong to speak about a Muslim maternity hospital. "It is more of a special program. The main thing is that a gynecologist should be a woman. It doesn't matter what her nationality is, as well as the nationality of the nurses," he told The Moscow News. Kalandarov's organization helps women during the pre-birth period and if necessary, invites a priest to the maternity hospital.

After the news about "a Muslim maternity home" spread, some city officials asked Kalandarov why he "is dividing people." The Al-Khak leader is going to write a letter to Mayor Yury Luzhkov asking for help. "Any division of people is out of the question," Kalandarov said. "A woman receives the services she wants. What is bad about it?" The head of the Muslim organization said people were explained where the terms demanded by their belief are observed. People get a freedom of choice.

"A woman who wants the first word her child hears to be 'Allah' should have such an opportunity," Kalandarov said.

Al-Khak is dreaming about an increase of the "Muslim infrastructure" in Moscow.

A maternity welfare clinic and a number of kindergartens are not a very distant prospect. "Two to three years maximum. There is a big demand for it." The program at the Clinic No. 15 was the first step. Under another program, a dental health service will be established at the Dental Clinic No. 2. Rules for treatment of Muslims there are also simple: Dentists should not use alcohol and pig brushes.

Commenting on Smidovich's statistics, Kalandarov said: "It is no surprise. There are a lot of non-Russians in Moscow. What can you do with Russian women if they don't want to bear children? Muslims are not guilty of that. Conditions favorable for women to bear children must be created."

There are a lot of social problems, Kalandarov says, and Russian women believe one or two children are enough. It is in the Russian mentality to provide better conditions and a better education for a smaller number of children. Muslims also love their children but have a simpler attitude to them. Children are brought up in more severe conditions and are more adaptable to difficulties. This is the secret of Smidovich's statistics, as Kalandarov sees it.

Extraordinary measures should be taken so that Russian women want to have children. Otherwise, all maternity hospitals will be 'Muslim." So far, they are an invention of the media. MN

FACT BOX The draft prepared by the Foreign and Defense Policy Council in late July said "the budding rise in the birth rate does not guarantee reproduction of the population." "Alcohol and tobacco consumption is growing. Drug addiction, especially among young people, is on the rise. Social diseases, including TB and AIDS, threaten not only the health of current generations, but the genetic legacy of the nation," the document says.

Russia's population will continue to decline by 600,000 people a year until 2008, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said in a forecast for the country's socioeconomic development published on August 17.

http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2005-32-27