WHRIN is a global platform to expand harm reduction approaches for women.

WHRIN es una plataforma global orientada a reducir los daños asociados al consumo de drogas por parte de mujeres, así como a desarrollar un entorno que favorezca la implementación y expansión de recursos orientados a mujeres para la reducción de daños.

WHRIN est une tribune internationale travaillant pour la réduction des risques associés à la prise de drogues par les femmes et cherchant à développer un environnement adapté à la mise en œuvre des politiques de réduction des risques pour les femmes.

Women and Harm Reduction International Network (WHRIN)

Coinciding with the United Nations international day to eliminate violence against women, and the subsequent 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign (25 November to 10 December), women who use drugs and their allies around the world, unified in their determination to stop systemic and gender-based violence against women who use drugs, again unleashed a diverse and dynamic series of actions. 

Women who use drugs are exposed to higher rates of violence than women in the general public. This violence includes, (but is not limited to) rape, sexual harassment, extortion, loss of child custody, imprisonment for mere personal possession, extra judicial killing, capital punishment, obstetric violence and penalisation for drug use in pregnancy. Prohibition either directly causes or greatly exacerbates conditions for all of these violations. Gender-based violence cannot be eliminated if those most affected are not directly and meaningfully involved at all levels in relevant policy and programming. 

Women who use drugs are boldly stepping out to take their place in the women’s movement and efforts to stop gender-based violence. Collectively we and our allies call for governments to end the gendered, failed and murderous policy of drug prohibition. 

A growing number of consortia actions and engagement with partners has further amplified engagement in 2022. The following summary (with hyperlinks) features some of the actions performed by women who use drugs and our allies around the world, in Portugal, Uganda, Greece, Ukraine, France, Serbia, Kenya, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Malawi, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Moldova.Coinciding with the United Nations international day to eliminate violence against women, and the subsequent 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign (25 November to 10 December), women who use drugs and their allies around the world, unified in their determination to stop systemic and gender-based violence against women who use drugs, again unleashed a diverse and dynamic series of actions. Women who use drugs are exposed to higher rates of violence than women in the general public. This violence includes, (but is not limited to) rape, sexual harassment, extortion, loss of child custody, imprisonment for mere personal possession, extra judicial killing, capital punishment, obstetric violence and penalisation for drug use in pregnancy. Prohibition either directly causes or greatly exacerbates conditions for all of these violations. Gender-based violence cannot be eliminated if those most affected are not directly and meaningfully involved at all levels in relevant policy and programming. Women who use drugs are boldly stepping out to take their place in the women’s movement and efforts to stop gender-based violence. Collectively we and our allies call for governments to end the gendered, failed and murderous policy of drug prohibition. A growing number of consortia actions and engagement with partners has further amplified engagement in 2022. The following summary (with hyperlinks) features some of the actions performed by women who use drugs and our allies around the world, in Portugal, Uganda, Greece, Ukraine, France, Serbia, Kenya, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Malawi, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Moldova.

EVAWUD22 Summary Report

With the International campaign for the elimination of violence against women 2022, the Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS (

) and the Women and Harm Reduction International Network (

) call for an end to all forms of violence against women who use drugs.

Women who use drugs, including trans and gender non-conforming people, are subject to extreme levels and a wide range of physical and psychological harm due to punitive prohibition of some substances in the EECA region and globally.State driven stigma, criminalisation and corruption drive substantive health and safety harms and act as barriers between women who use drugs and critical harm reduction and gender-based violence (GBV) services. Women who use drugs 

the rate experienced by other women in the general public. This violence includes, (but is not limited to) forced and coerced sterilisation and abortion, rape, sexual harassment, loss of child custody, imprisonment for mere personal possession or use, and other types of gendered violations, stigma and discrimination.

Women who use drugs around the world can face arbitrary detention, extortion, police violence, torture and ill-treatment, with over a third of women in prison incarcerated for drug offences globally. Due to the war on drugs, women survivors have little recourse and often no support, particularly in cases of violence from intimate partner, police, prison guards and medical staff. The experiences of violence against women who use drugs are even more extreme for those facing intersecting discrimination, such as HIV-positive women, women of colour, sex workers, LBT women or women with disability. These conditions have only worsened during COVID-19 restrictions which have created contexts that have escalated GBV without matching responses for women at risk or being exposed to violence.

EWNA and WHRIN note that by collaborating with groups of women who use drugs, supporting and documenting peer led actions and services, the appropriate responses to these inequities and violations are clear. Meaningful involvement of women who use drugs must feature as the cornerstone to all good practice responses in developing GBV services for women who use drugs.

As the criminalization of drug use and HIV stands as the primary barrier between women who use drugs and attainment of human rights including access to harm reduction, HIV prevention, treatment and care and other essential health services, decriminalisation is also imperative.Expansion of harm reduction and inclusion of violence mitigation and support services are also critical. Sexual and reproductive health is now promoted as an essential service that should be incorporated within the harm reduction suite of services for people who use drugs, and that best practice service delivery integrates  comprehensive GBV services.

EWNA and WHRIN call for an end to the war on drugs to end violence against women

Legislation and legal principles, procedures, policies, programmes and practices relating to criminal justice must be reviewed to determine if they are adequate to prevent and eliminate violence against women who use drugs or if they have a negative impact on women and, if they do, to modify them in order to ensure that women who use drugs enjoy fair and equal treatment.

Please join us in ensuring adequate resources and legislative frameworks to uphold the safety and human rights of women who use drugs.

End violence against women who use drugs: 2022 EVAWUD campaign

Women and gender diverse people who use drugs experiencing violence and/or homelessness, often face very restricted access to shelters. Commonly, women’s shelters apply a “zero tolerance” policy with respect to drug use and to refer people who use drugs to other services (which usually don’t exist, so people remain at risk of violence and unstable housing). Those who desperately need shelter and non-judgmental support are turned away at a time when they are most at risk. Many shelters feel they do not have the staff expertise to serve this population, without examining ways to overcome such concerns.

This workshop aims to provide a space for addressing such barriers to improve capacity for shelters to accommodate women and gender diverse people who use drugs. It is designed to provide information for shelters’ managers, policy makers and staff to:

Raise awareness among management of shelters and other relevant policy makers on the need to lower thresholds to meet the needs of women in all their diversity by accommodating clients who use drugs.

Provide management of shelters with insights and practical tools to lower thresholds to shelter access for clients who use drugs, while policy makers will gain insight on how to adjust policies to support improved access to shelters for those in need.

It is recognised that, in some contexts, supplementary Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) and other related capacity building will be needed to better enable inclusion for two spirited, trans, nonbinary and gender diverse people in shelters. This toolkit touches on key considerations while especially addressing barriers to inclusion for people who use drugs.

Addressing inclusion of women who use drugs in shelters

Advancing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women who use drugs is available here.

In 2020, the Women and Harm Reduction International Network (WHRIN) and Frontline AIDS published the guide Advancing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women who use drugs, which has been translated into Bahasa Indonesia, French and Portuguese. This manual has been designed for workshop facilitators to train community-based and peer-led harm reduction service providers to put this guide into practice. 

To ensure community-based and peer-led organisations have ownership of this manual, a working group of partners from India, Kenya, Nepal and Nigeria contributed to the curriculum’s development at all stages. The headings, sub-topics and learning objectives have been discussed with and validated by members of this working group. Between July and October 2021, fortnightly meetings were held with the working group to ensure the training course is relevant and applicable. Working group members have also contributed to case studies, the design of workshop activities, and the key messages of each module.

Integrating harm reduction and sexual and reproductive health and rights - A facilitator's guide

WHRIN is taking the occasion of August 18, “Never Give Up Day” as apt opportunity to launch theround-up report of support don’t punish with a focus on women, 2022. Never give up day provides acommon platform for health and social care organizations and others to redouble determinationand connection. WHRIN thus celebrates the impactful resilience and determination of our global community with this summary of some of the actions from 13 countries around the world which galvanise attention on the gendered failure of drug prohibition and urgent demands for reform.

2022 Support Don’t Punish with a focus on women

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

The global spread of harm reduction services is stalling, a continuation of a trend first observed in 20121.

Women are estimated to account for one third people who use drugs globally yet are consistently reported to have less access to harm reduction services and to be at higher risk of HIV and hepatitis C infection. Tools do exist to enable harm reduction services to increase their relevance and reach for women who use drugs (WUD). These include use of a gender lens and gender mainstreaming in planning and service delivery. Services that have introduced such approaches are thin on the ground and where these do exist, it is often difficult or not possible to document and promote the outcome. As a result, robust data on this subject is scarce. In addition, research on drug use and related health issues rarely produces information about women and harm reduction.

In this context, to leverage greater accountability from governments that have endorsed UN guidelines and resolutions around the provision of services for WUD, it is important to document and promote such services where they do exist. By documenting successful harm reduction services for women, models can be incorporated, replicated, resourced and established.

With this in mind, the Women and Harm Reduction International Network (WHRIN) undertook surveys and desk research to map women friendly harm reduction services around the world. This report provides a summary of regional findings as well as common global trends. Also included is a ‘living’ listing by Regions of services with a brief description and links for more detail where available.

WHRIN invite readers to add to this list - where exiting services are not listed, details of services are incomplete or are incorrect.

Global mapping of harm reduction services for women who use drugs

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

Perhaps it is unsurprising that the most marginalised women experience the sharpest end of discrimination against women, but we at AKSI Keadilan and the Women and Harm Reduction International Network, the authors of the report, are surprised. We are surprised that more attention is not therefore paid to intersectionality including drug use status and associated structural drivers of gendered discrimination.

The report brings focus on institutionalized discrimination and violations of the rights of women who use drugs including GBV, access to health, parental custody rights, sexual and reproductive health rights and the violence of law enforcement – including disproportionate sentencing, extortion and incarceration.

Urgent steps must be taken to address the risks of violence faced by women who use drugs. Systemic barriers to human rights must be removed and access to essential health services and safety vastly improved.

Women and Harm Reduction International Network (WHRIN)

Region

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