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EHRA examina los servicios para reducción de daños que brindan 10 países a personas que consumen drogas, en un entorno de emergencia de la salud pública. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Virtually every country of the world has been faced with the COVID-19 pandemic. As learning developed as to how to combat transmission of the virus, countries increasingly resorted to national ‘lockdowns’ during the first wave of the pandemic from around March to June 2020. After coming out of the first wave of COVID-19, countries have used local, regional and national ‘lockdowns’ to once again prevent further transmission during the second wave and similar approaches are expected in the future in the event of further waves of the pandemic hitting countries until every country can vaccinate a high proportion of their population.

For those people who are highly drug dependent, with a resulting compromised immune system, COVID-19 presents a serious threat to life regardless of age. Governments, non-governmental (NGOs) and communitybased organisations (CBOs) working to support people who use drugs, and other vulnerable and marginalised people in society, have had to react rapidly to the massive increase in COVID-19 transmission across countries and continents.

The ten case studies presented here provide a snapshot of the responses of specific organisations and communities who work with people who use drugs and some other marginalised groups around the world, including Afghanistan, Australia, the Czech Republic, Kenya, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

The objective of presenting these case studies is to provide details as to how changes in service delivery were implemented in response to COVID-19, and why, together with the impact of such innovative approaches. In so doing, governments, organisations and communities around the world can learn from the experiences presented in these case studies for possible application, and adaptation, to their own context and environment.

Prestación de servicios para la reducción de daños a personas que consumen drogas durante una emergencia de salud pública

Al acercarse el décimo aniversario de la adopción de las Reglas de Bangkok de las Naciones Unidas, nosotros, los abajo firmantes, nos sentimos alarmados por el aumento de la población mundial de mujeres encarceladas en alrededor de 100.000 personas desde la adopción de las Reglas — que pretenden reducir el encarcelamiento de las mujeres — y por la continua discriminación y abuso que sufren las mujeres en los sistemas de justicia penal.

La cantidad de mujeres encarceladas está aumentando a un ritmo alarmante, a pesar de que las mujeres suelen ser condenadas por delitos menores no violentos. Las mujeres se ven afectadas de manera desproporcionada por las políticas punitivas en materia de drogas y a menudo cometen delitos en la pobreza para sobrevivir y alimentar a sus familias. Muchas se encuentran encarceladas como consecuencia directa de la discriminación.

Como minoría en las cárceles, donde representan entre el 2 y el 9% de la población carcelaria nacional, las mujeres no suelen tener acceso a programas y servicios de apoyo para su rehabilitación que atiendan a sus características y necesidades específicas. También existe una crisis de salud mental entre las mujeres en las cárceles, ya que hasta el 80% de ellas viven con una enfermedad mental diagnosticable, lo cual se ha visto agravado por las medidas relacionadas la lucha contra la propagación del COVID-19.

En todo el mundo, las mujeres en detención siguen siendo objeto de amenazas a su dignidad y humanidad. Muchas veces no pueden acceder a una atención médica adecuada y corren un riesgo especialmente alto de sufrir agresiones sexuales y humillaciones en la prisión. En algunos países, las mujeres incluso son sujetadas durante el trabajo de parto y el nacimiento o son puestas en confinamiento solitario mientras están embarazadas o cuidan a un niño pequeño.

Proteger los derechos humanos de las mujeres en el sistema de justicia penal - Llamamiento conjunto a la acción

33 organizaciones de la sociedad civil y comunitarias instan al PCB de ONUSIDA a garantizar que los servicios de reducción de daños estén disponibles, accesibles y totalmente financiados. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Ahead of the UNAIDS Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on 16 September, 33 civil society and community-led organisations working on drug policy and harm reduction are urging the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (UNAIDS PCB) to uphold the rights of people who use drugs and harm reduction in the new UNAIDS Strategy.

This letter includes six key recommendations from our community and sector and we asking UNAIDS PCB to advocate for these at the upcoming Consultation.

Now, more than ever, we need their leadership to be strong, bold and unrelenting in ensuring that key populations, including people who inject drugs, are prioritised in the new UNAIDS Strategy; harm reduction services are available, scaled-up and fully funded to meet the HIV prevention and health needs of people who use drugs wherever needed; communities, including community-led services, and civil society are at the front and centre of the HIV response; and barriers to services, including criminalisation, stigma, discrimination, punitive laws and policies, are removed.

The new UNAIDS strategy will have profound implications - either by compounding or alleviating the political invisibility of people who use drugs. We need them to show a commitment to people who use drugs in your engagement in the Strategy process.

We will not end AIDS if we keep leaving people who inject drugs behind.

Llamado a mantener los derechos de las personas que usan drogas y la reducción de daños en la nueva estrategia de ONUSIDA

ICASA 2021 es una gran oportunidad para impulsar la respuesta al VIH centrando la importancia para personas que consumen drogas de respuestas a la epidemia con acciones para reducción de daños que afirmen sus derechos. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

The International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) is the headline conference in the region, and an important opportunity to advance the HIV response. However, people who use drugs and the harm reduction community have been consistently marginalised and under-represented at these events.

Despite the 2019 conference (in Kigali, Rwanda) having more than 8,500 delegates and an objective to “Rethink gender norms, human rights-based approaches and inclusion towards equitable and accessible HIV and AIDS services including key populations”, there was once again very little focus on harm reduction, and poor visibility for people who inject drugs. This crucial aspect of the HIV response was restricted to only two satellite events and around five poster presentations.

We are calling on ICASA to proactively address this imbalance, starting with preparations for the 2021 conference.

Proposed Objective: To raise the profile of evidence-based harm reduction programs and promote integrated rights-based and stigma free interventions and policies for Africans who use drugs.

It is estimated that there may be as many as 2 million people who inject drugs in Africa, of whom more than 11 percent are living with HIV. Yet services remain woefully unavailable, and only a few African countries have adopted this approach – most often with external funding, and through NGOs rather than state provision. According to UNAIDS, people who inject drugs account for 8 percent of all new HIV infections in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 37 percent of all new infections in the Middle East and North Africa. This is a population that cannot be overlooked if we are to end AIDS in Africa.

Furthermore, the conference in Uganda is an opportune moment for this conversation – the host country itself has begun to embrace the harm reduction approach in response to its own domestic drug use challenges.

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Prestación de servicios para la reducción de daños a personas que consumen drogas durante una emergencia de salud pública

Proteger los derechos humanos de las mujeres en el sistema de justicia penal - Llamamiento conjunto a la acción

Llamado a mantener los derechos de las personas que usan drogas y la reducción de daños en la nueva estrategia de ONUSIDA

Más de 60 ONG en África invocan a ICASA 2021 centrar la importancia de la reducción de daños en la respuesta al VIH