Although disproportionately affected by HIV, adolescent girls and young women, particularly those living with HIV, are often the strongest advocates and leaders in the response. Ensuring they know their rights and have the skills and opportunities to claim them is crucial to removing barriers to life-saving HIV services, achieving gender equality, and ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
The publication documents results,…
According to a study from McGill University researchers, women who experience recent intimate partner violence (IPV) are three times more likely to contract HIV. In Sub-Saharan Africa, women face an intersecting epidemic of IPV and HIV.
Read the full article here…
A new UNAIDS report delineates a clear path that ends AIDS, and helps prepare for and tackle future pandemics. The report cautions, however, that ending AIDS will not come automatically. Women and girls are still disproportionately affected, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, 4,000 young women and girls became infected with HIV every week in 2022.
Read the full article…
Recent data gathered from the People Living with HIV Stigma Index 2.0 indicates that women living with HIV are at an increased risk of reproductive coercion by healthcare professionals across sub-Saharan Africa, eastern Europe, and central Asia. HIV positive women who are sex workers, use drugs and/or are migrants are more likely to receive poor quality and stigmatising reproductive care.
Read the full article…
Club Eney works with women at risk of HIV in Ukraine with a focus on providing women sensitive harm reduction services. In this interview Vielta tells of her personal journey from client to chair of Club Eney. She also discusses the integration of WINGS to address gender based violence as a component of their harm reduction service.
Read the full story here.
Angela and Julie, both working with women who use drugs in South Africa, discuss harm reduction services in an environment where women who use drugs experience high rates of gender-based violence, HIV prevalence and compound discrimination. Angela and Julie describe how women focused services are implemented in their country.
Read the full story here.
Women who use drugs face significant barriers in accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services. Comprehensive SRH is increasingly recognized as a core component in HIV and harm reduction services. The Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction provides evidence-based information and wrap-around services for pregnant and parenting people who use drugs. In this story, Joelle, Ria and Erika share about their personal motivations and about the…
SisterSpace provides a range of services responding to the needs of women who use drugs, including the world’s first women’s only safe injecting facility. In the following interview, CEO Janice Abbott reflects not only on how and why SisterSpace emerged but highlights the importance of fostering safe spaces and places for women in the community.
Read the full story here…
Patricia Gonzalez reflects on her near 30 years working with marginalized sectors of the community in Tijuana, Mexico. A combination of gendered, social and economic and political barriers impact on how marginalized sectors of society access health and welfare services- additionally the impact of the localized militarization of the War on Drugs has intensified both the state and social forms of violence experienced by women who use drugs…
Intersectional feminist principles form the basis of Metzineres practices, a Barcelona based harm reduction organization. The Metzineres model highlights not only the interconnectedness of the social determinants of health but also the critical importance of a ‘holistic person centered’ approach to service users. Metzineres’s innovative and unique model has achieved worldwide acclaim and attention in the harm reduction sector and is cited as…
Between 2010 and 2013, with support from the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, UN Women implemented a regional programme, "Action to Promote the Legal Empowerment of Women in the Context of HIV," to increase women's access to property and inheritance rights in nine sub-Saharan Africa countries (Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe) as a means to reduce vulnerabilities to and mitigate the…
This living report details the various global responses of organisations providing harm reduction and auxiliary services to women who use drugs. Responses to COVID restrictions for WUD have been mapped and are presented here.
The individual campaigns led by women who use drugs from all regions, converge into this energetic and engaging call for equal access to health and human rights. In addition, this film summary of some of the campaign actions was launched on International Drug User’s Day 1st November.
Read the global activity round up…
WHRIN is a global platform to expand harm reduction approaches for women. The vision of WHRIN is that all self-identified women who use drugs have unfettered access to available, quality, relevant health, social and legal services in a context of upholding human rights without stigma, discrimination or criminalization.
Visit the site: https://whrin.site/
The brief highlights the intersections between age, gender, and drug use, making the case for why young women who use drugs are particularly at risk of HIV transmission and not adequately reached through mainstream health services. The brief also offers some recommendations for how our HIV response can better meet the needs of young women affected by HIV and drug use.