Start of the project “Treatment and Harm Reduction in Prisons” in the Republic of
Moldova (6 September 2010)
In September, the Pompidou Group started, in collaboration with the Department of
Penitentiary Institutions of the Moldovan Ministry of Justice, the project “Treatment and Harm
Reduction in Prisons”. The overall objective of the project “Treatment and Harm Reduction in
Prisons” is the improvement of the Human Rights and Public Health situation in the Republic
of Moldova. More specifically the project aims at contributing to current reforms and
development of drugs strategies in Moldova and in the region through furthering of drugs
treatment and harm reduction measures in prisons.
The Moldovan Ministry of Justice estimated that 10 % of all prisoners in Moldova are drug
users, including many injecting drug users (IDUs). Especially injecting drug use implies high
drugs-related health risks such as overdosing, vulnerability to tuberculosis, abscessed
infections of injection sites caused by a lack of hygiene or aseptic technique, or, in the case
that prisoners share used injection needles, the transmission of blood-borne diseases such
as HIV or Hepatitis C. According to WHO studies drugs users in prisons are typically much
more likely to share injecting equipment than those outside of prison.
To counter the high levels of drug use and the transmission of blood-borne diseases in its
country’s prisons, the Moldovan government had launched a four-pronged
approach: detection of HIV infection; monitoring of HIV cases; harm reduction measures and
treatment of infected prisoners. However, NGOs and the medical services in prisons stated
that the scale, effectiveness and nationwide coverage of the above mentioned measures
aiming at reducing drugs-related risks are still insufficient. A central problem identified is
prison staff’s and prisoners’ decline of harm reduction and treatment projects in prisons.
Moreover, drug dependent patients that want to benefit from such preventive measures are
often stigmatised and thus reluctant to take part in treatment.
In the first phase the THRP project aims at promoting the benefits of treatment and harm
reduction measures in the prison field and shall thus be a response to the mentioned
problems. Project activities such as round tables and training seminars will bring together
local practitioners with international experts and shall lead to sustainable outcomes through
the training of knowledge multipliers. Moreover, the project part is designed in a way that it
can function as the starting point for extended cooperation in the field of anti-drugs in
Moldova and neighbouring regions.