28/7 Tass 277
MOSCOW, July 28 (Itar-Tass) —— Children should be warned against a threat posed by child molesters since school, Chief psychiatrist of the Russian Health and Social Development Ministry Zurab Kekelidze, who is Acting Director of Serbsky Institute of forensic psychiatry, told a press conference on Thursday.
Kekelidze believes that measures to prevent child molesting should be taken at school, at special lessons of psychology. Schools should tell children about drug addicts, homosexuals and child molesters, Kekelidze said. Children should be told who child molesters are and warned to be afraid of them and to avoid any contact with such people, Kekelidze said.
Children should also be told that if as they grow older any of them feels an inclination to child molesting one should immediately consult a doctor, Kekelidze said. Chemical castration of child molesters, which is widely discussed now, is a temporary measure only, the expert warned. As long as a person takes special hormones his sex drive is subdued, but after the hormones are dropped the sex function revives, he said.
Kekelidze does not believe that the number of child molesters has sharply increased. He approved the existing punishment for sex crimes against adolescents, but thinks that punishment for such crimes should be harder.
On July 12 President Medvedev submitted a bill to the State Duma envisaging life imprisonment to child molesters for subsequent acts of pedophilia. Besides, a special order of compulsory measures has been established for crimes against sexual inviolability of adolescents.