Beauty Contest for HIV-Positive Girls
On 1st December Russia is to hold a beauty contest for HIV-positive girls, announced Russia’s chief sanitary official Gennady Onishchennko on Monday.
The contest, which is to be called “Miss Positive-2005”, has been deliberately scheduled for Dec. 1, to co-incide with World AIDS Day.
“It sounds absurd, someone may say this idea is offensive, but why not hold this beauty contest among HIV-positive girls,” Onishchenko said at the press conference.
“With this small action we are trying to change the general public’s attitude. Why can’t these people live like ordinary people do? They can and they should, in any society. Just like people live with hepatitis B and other diseases.”
Independent experts estimate that there are between 800,000 and one million HIV-infected people in Russia, and that this figure is on the rise, with around 100 new cases detected every day.
80 percent of those people living with HIV are under 30 yrs old.