AIDES is a national French community-based NGO working on HIV and hepatitis, primarily with groups most affected, including gay men, people who use drugs, transgender people, migrants/foreigners and women at risk.

AIDES es una ONG nacional francesa de base comunitaria que trabaja en temas de VIH y hepatitis, principalmente con los grupos más afectados, incluyendo a hombres homosexuales, usuarios de drogas, personas transgénero, migrantes/extranjeros y mujeres en condiciones de riesgo.

AIDES est une ONG française travaillant sur le SIDA et les hépatites, principalement auprès des populations les plus vulnérables (les personnes homosexuelles, usagères des drogues, trans, migrantes, et femmes en situations de vulnérabilité).

AIDES

United Nations Secretary-General
President of the United Nations Human Rights Council
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

President of the European Commission
European Commissioner for Crisis Management
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety

Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

We, the undersigned organisations, call on the United Nations, the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to jointly support and set up, as a matter of urgency, an uninterrupted supply chain of humanitarian assistance to the affected populations within the country, and to establish safe humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from Ukraine.

On 24 February 2022, the Russian Federation launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, targeting several large cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Meriupol and Zhitomir, and bombing neighbourhoods within those areas, inevitably resulting in countless civilian deaths. The escalating war actions are causing tremendous humanitarian crises affecting millions of people. Those staying in cities and villages in Ukraine are in urgent need of warm shelter, food, water, basic medicine and other essential supplies. Additionally, more than 100,000 people have been internally displaced since the invasion began, and the number of displaced people will continue to grow. At the moment, meeting the essential needs of internally displaced people is extremely difficult in Ukraine due to martial law, curfews and threats to the lives of volunteers.

UNHCR estimates that due to the war, up to five million people will flee Ukraine. As of 3 March 2022, one million refugees were estimated to have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries —including Moldova, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. As the situation worsens, an estimated four million people may flee Ukraine in the coming weeks and months. We highly appreciate the efforts thus far of governments, international institutions and millions of citizens in European countries — especially those in Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary and Lithuania — in organising comprehensive support for all refugees from Ukraine.

What is now urgently needed is the provision of basic, essential health supplies and medication for people in Ukraine, including those internally displaced, by means of revised importation rules and distribution networks. People who belong to vulnerable and discriminated groups — such as people who use drugs, people in prison, gay and other men who have sex with other men, sex workers and trans people — must not be overlooked in these efforts. Notably, Ukraine has the second largest population of people living with HIV, people with tuberculosis and drug-resistant tuberculosis and opioid dependency in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the country has developed successful and progressive harm reduction and treatment programmes, supported by the global community. To sustain those achievements and preserve human life, we ask you to ensure essential provisions including opioid agonist therapy, ARV therapy, and tuberculosis diagnostics and treatments.

Ukraine urgently needs humanitarian corridors supported by intergovernmental and multilateral organisations. On 1 March, the UN General Assembly adopted with overwhelming support (including by the European Union) a resolution demanding “all parties to allow safe and unfettered passage to destinations outside of Ukraine and to facilitate the rapid, safe and unhindered access to humanitarian assistance for those in need in Ukraine, to protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel (...) and to respect human rights.”

Following negotiations between the two sides on 3 March, Ukraine and Russia have agreed tentatively to create humanitarian corridors7 in the worst-affected areas of Ukraine, where civilians are most at risk from the war. But in reality, there is no clarity on how these passages could be implemented.

In line with this, we call on your organisations to:

Urgently establish safe, open and uninterrupted corridors for humanitarian workers and supplies, including essential food and medicine, to reach people in need throughout Ukraine (particularly in cities in eastern, southern and central Ukraine currently under attack).

Create a coordinated and agile system for assessing needs and tracking available services and supplies’ shortages and organising coordinated international response to address it.

Urgently support the establishment of inter-agency safe corridors for the evacuation of all people wishing to leave Ukraine, regardless of nationality, to neighbouring countries.

Organise transport of lifesaving cargo both for internally displaced people in Ukraine and refugees outside the country.

Engage in a sustained and coordinated manner with local and national authorities of neighbouring countries, and of expected destination countries, to ensure:
+ Continued safe entry and passage of people fleeing Ukraine (without the need for visas or other burdensome administrative requirements).
+ Distribution of food, COVID-19 personal protective equipment and medicine, including antiretroviral therapy (ARV) and/or opioid agonist treatment, without discrimination.
+ Safe and uninterrupted circulation of essential food and medicines — including utilisation of the simplified control procedures for the export, transportation and provision of medicinal products containing controlled substances, as recommended by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

Help to ensure the parties to the conflict take the necessary measures to account for protected people, including prisoners of war and detainees.

Apply all efforts to negotiate this issue with both Russian and Ukrainian authorities through all possible channels, to ensure safe and effective humanitarian corridors are established as quickly as possible.

A humanitarian corridor for Ukraine - Joint open letter

To: Ms Ghada Waly, Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Subject: Open letter on UNODC statement on International Human Rights Day 2021

We urge you to mark International Human Rights Day 2021 by calling on Member States to change drug policies and practices that violate human rights and perpetuate inequality and discrimination.

We are writing to you ahead of International Human Rights Day 2021, which will take place on the 10th December amidst escalating global demands for the reform of laws and practices that entrench racial discrimination and social inequality, including drug policies. Last year, IDPC – together with dozens of other civil society and community organisations – called on you to issue a statement on International Human Rights Day urging Member States to change drug laws and practices that undermine health and human rights. A year later, we ask you to seize this day as an opportunity to show UNODC´s alignment with other UN entities in calling for an end to drug policies and practices that perpetuate inequality and discrimination, and violate human rights.

For decades, punitive drug policies have driven widespread human rights abuses, as has been amply documented by the UN. These include the death penalty for drug offences; extrajudicial killings; arbitrary detention, often masquerading as ‘rehabilitation’; the denial of access to life-saving harm reduction services; widespread barriers to accessing controlled medicines for pain relief; the criminalisation of people who use drugs, subsistence farmers and others groups in situations of vulnerability; corporal punishment; and mass incarceration. In all of these cases, draconian drug policies have disproportionately affected people marginalised on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status, thus entrenching inequality and discrimination.

Along 2021, a broad range of UN entities called on Member States to reform drug policies with discriminatory outcomes. In June 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released a landmark study on arbitrary detention and drug polices, which found that ´

the war on drugs may be understood to a significant extent as a war on people. Its impact is often greatest on those who are poor, but also frequently overlaps with discrimination in law enforcement directed at vulnerable groups

´. At the same time, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a new ‘Agenda towards transformative change for racial justice and equality´, highlighting that ´

The discriminatory application of criminal law must be tackled at every stage, including by reforming drug-related policies

´. The High Commissioner´s proposal led to Human Rights Council Resolution 47/21, which contains key commitments to uproot systemic racism in the law enforcement and criminal justice systems. The Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, adopted in June 2021, also showcased the international community´s commitment to ending inequalities as a step towards ending AIDS. Lastly, the new UN system Common Position on Incarceration, led by UNODC in partnership with other UN entities, notes ‘

the overrepresentation of minority and marginalized groups among prisoners, many of whom are charged with petty and nonviolent offences

support reform efforts aimed at ensuring proportionate and individualized sentencing and alternatives to conviction or punishment in appropriate cases, including for minor drug-related offences

These various commitments emerging across the United Nations are aligned with the 2018 Chief Executives Board’s UN System Common Position on drug-related matters, which makes clear that ‘

should be designed and implemented by States in accordance with their human rights obligations

’, and commits all UN agencies, including UNODC, to support drug policies ‘

that put people, health, and human rights at the centre

Similar human rights concerns have been highlighted in the just-released Global Drug Policy Index, which measures and ranks the national drug policies of 30 countries according to how well they align with the UN system Common Position on Drugs and its Task Team report of March 2019.

The theme of the 2021 International Human Rights Day is ‘Equality: Reducing inequalities, advancing human rights’, and is aimed at ´

addressing and finding solutions for deep-rooted forms of discrimination that have affected the most vulnerable people in societies

´. As such, it presents a crucial opportunity for UNODC to align itself with other UN entities in calling for the end of policies that perpetuate inequality and discrimination, while highlighting its commitment to the promotion of human rights, in line with the UN system Common Positions.

It is in this context that we urge you to issue a strong statement on International Human Rights Day, calling on states to change the drug laws, policies and practices that violate health and human rights, and entrench inequality. To be credible, such a statement should explicitly acknowledge the disproportionate impact of drug laws and drug control on people marginalised on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status, and urge Member States to:

Abolish the death penalty in all circumstances. Imposing capital punishment for drug offences has been found to be contrary to international human rights law by the Human Rights Committee, and the Human Rights Council.

Put an immediate end to extrajudicial killings committed in the name of drug control, as has been repeatedly called for by the Human Rights Council and UN human rights experts.

Permanently close compulsory drug detention centres, including those that masquerade as ‘rehabilitation’, and implement voluntary, evidence-informed, and rights-based health and social services, as recently called for by sixteen UN agencies, including UNODC.

Stress the urgent need to provide accessible, affordable, and adequately funded harm reduction services in community and closed settings, to fulfil the right to health and the right to life of people who use drugs, as demanded by several UN human rights bodies and experts. This is also central to UNODC’s core role as lead UNAIDS co-sponsor regarding prisons and HIV amongst people who use drugs.

Take immediate measures to address prison overcrowding, as already recommended by UNODC and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, by promoting alternatives to incarceration, and ensuring proportionate sentencing for all drug offences, including by taking into account mitigating factors – in line with the basic principle that prisons should only be used as a last resort in all circumstances.

Ensure that people who use drugs are not subject to arbitrary detention, torture, or ill-treatment – whether in state custody or public or private drug services. While under detention, people with a drug dependence or health problems associated with their drug use must be offered evidence-based treatment, harm reduction and other drug services on a strictly voluntary basis.

Promote the end of all punishment for drug use, and drug possession and cultivation for personal use, as permitted within the three drug control conventions. Such policy shifts will help to end the stigma, criminalisation, and exclusion faced by people who use drugs, and to facilitate access to health and social services, as called for by the UN system Common Position, UNAIDS, and UN human rights bodies.

Make sure that drug policies incorporate a gender-sensitive perspective. This should be done by tailoring drug services to the specific needs of women, and by ensuring that criminal laws take into account the circumstances of women involved in drug offences, as most of them come from backgrounds of poverty, marginalisation, and oppression.

Clearly outline the ways in which UNODC will work to achieve these changes, and the measures being taken to ensure that human rights are effectively embedded as a core strand for all of the Office’s work.

As the lead UN agency in drug-related matters, UNODC has the responsibility to promote drug policies that respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, in a way that is consistent with the standards developed by the UN system, and in line with the commitments set in the UN system Common Positions on drugs and on incarceration. A strong statement in the forthcoming International Human Rights Day would be an important and welcome step to signal UNODC’s unequivocal commitment.

We look forward to discussing these concerns and recommendations with you.

NGOs urge UNODC's Executive Director to mark Human Rights Day with a call to reform drug policies that entrench inequality

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN RESEARCH, HARM REDUCTION, TREATMENT AND PEOPLE LIVING WITH HEPATITIS C

Hepatitis C is an easy disease to treat. Elimination is possible with the necessary political will. Harm reduction and community services play a crucial role in this setting.

The 3rd Hepatitis Community Summit will discuss these issues and bring together researchers, health and community workers, medical staff and HCV patients and advocates.

The meeting is organised by Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network in cooperation with the European Union funded Eurosider project, which is coordinated by the French research institute INSERM. The main objective of the Eurosider Project is to contribute to a better Hepatitis C policy and practice by developing the transferability of an effective community-based intervention to people who inject drugs in different political contexts with the aim to reduce the risk of HIV-HCV transmission.

Hep-C Community Summit 

Chemsex has led the French community-based HIV organisation AIDES to bring two previously separate strands of its work together, Fred Bladou told the recent European Chemsex Forum in Berlin. AIDES began to talk about drug use with gay men and to talk about sexuality with people who inject drugs, he said.

The first part of its strategy was to develop a new approach to sexual health promotion and education. On the edge of Paris’ gay district le Marais, AIDES has opened a community health centre called ‘Le Spot’ that provides HIV testing, easy access to condoms and other prevention materials, and helps develop community understanding of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and undetectable = untransmittable (U=U). There is also a strong emphasis on peer support, including weekly peer-to-peer meetings for men involved in chemsex - described as a space that allows men to be listened to and supported, recreating social connections for men who have become isolated.

The second part of the strategy was to develop a new approach to harm reduction, including adapting it to a new population who are taking different substances. Education is provided on safer injecting practices, including staff observing an individual’s injecting practice and giving feedback on how it could be safer. Users can bring substances they have purchased in for testing, to better understand what drugs they are actually taking. Sterile equipment is provided.

A similar approach has been taken in 15 French cities where AIDES works and where chemsex is an issue. Outreach is done at private sex parties, saunas and sex clubs. The organisation also moderates a private Facebook group with around 1200 participants and a WhatsApp group, both of which allow men to share information and feel less isolated.

Stephan Vernhes of AIDES said that the weekly Paris meetings were attended by around 15 men each time, with a total of around 180 men attending in the past year. Establishing ground rules was crucial to creating a safe space, Vernhes said. Each week, participants are reminded of guidelines on non-judgement, confidentiality, active listening and related issues.

To maintain interest, different themes are addressed each week, such as sexuality and pleasure; dealing with cravings; screenings of documentaries on drug issues; and presentations by sexologists, psychiatrists and addiction specialists. As an increasing number of participants now have a goal of abstinence, some sessions now address life without drugs or sex without drugs.

The chemsex response is reshaping sexual health services and reinventing harm reduction

On Friday September 23, 2011, the French NGOs AIDES, ASUD and Fédération Addiction will be organizing a public meeting in Paris dedicated to promoting drug law reform.

Featured speakers include Stéphane Gatignon (mayor of the city of Sevran), Serge Supersac (former member of the French police forces), Ruth Dreifuss (former president of Switzerland) and Annick Lepetit (First Deputy of the City of Paris). The French version of the report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy with be released on this occasion.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

French NGOs and authors call for drug law reforms

In early June, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a report which demonstrates that the current drug control strategy relying on heavy penalties towards drug users has failed. The report triggered heavy debates all around the world on the alternatives proposed by the Global Commission - decriminalisation of possession of drugs for personal use, and regulation.

As a response to the report, several French policy makers, including Claude Gueant (French Ministry of Interior) and Nora Berra (state Secretary of Health), strongly opposed the possibility of cannabis decrminalisation. Despite available evidence showing otherwise, Mr. Gueant declared: "If we decriminalise, we make access easier, which would increase health problems. With regards to delinquency and the phenomenon of gangs, it has been observed everywhere that decriminalisation of cannabis leads gangs to start trafficking other substances".

A number of French organisations working on drug policy and harm reduction reacted strongly to these statements. This was the case, for instance of AIDES and ASUD (Association Francaise d'Usagers de Drogues). Their statement, addressed to Nora Berra, is available in French below.

AIDES

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Related Content

A humanitarian corridor for Ukraine - Joint open letter

NGOs urge UNODC's Executive Director to mark Human Rights Day with a call to reform drug policies that entrench inequality

Hep-C Community Summit

The chemsex response is reshaping sexual health services and reinventing harm reduction

French NGOs and authors call for drug law reforms

Debates about cannabis decriminalisation oppose French government and NGOs