The Philippine Sex Workers Collective is speaking out against human rights violations against sex workers and drug users. In a statement on their website published on 27 October, the collective explains how oppression against drug users is similar to oppression against sex workers and it is important to stand in solidarity with anyone whose rights are violated.
On the 18th of March 2016, the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD) published a report entitled “PrEP for People Who Inject Drugs: Community Voices on Pros, Cons, and Concerns”.
The report is based on three regional consultations and a series of one on one interviews with people who use drugs and other activists. Approximately 75 people from 33 different countries participated in the process.
This Community Guide summarises the Sex Workers Who Use Drugs: Ensuring a Joint Approach briefing paper. The community guide highlights the specific needs and rights of sex workers who use drugs.
This joint briefing paper by NSWP and INPUD highlights the specific needs and rights of sex workers who use drugs, as a community that spans two key populations. This document provides an overview of some of the most endemic and substantive ways in which sex workers who use drugs face double criminalisation and associated police harassment, intersectional stigma, compounded marginalisation and social exclusion, heightened interference and harassment from healthcare and other service providers, infantilisation, pathologisation, and an associated undermining of agency, choice, and self-determination. A Community Guide is also available.
INPUD’s Drug User Peace Initiative created the following resource, A War on Women who Use Drugs. This resource argues that the so-called ‘war on drugs’ is, in reality, a war on people who use drugs, with certain groups being subject to disproportionate abuse, human rights violations, stigma, and police attention. The resource documents the disproportionate harm of the war on drugs to women of colour, young women, poor women, and female sex workers. The resource pays particular attention to female sex workers, describing how female sex workers who use drugs suffer from double discrimination, stigma and criminalisation which in turn increase risks of abuse, violence, STIs and alienation from service provisions.
Across the globe, HIV rates are climbing among sex workers and people who use drugs. One of the main reasons is that they are criminalised. Too often sex workers and drug users are forced to choose between protecting their health and staying safe from police harassment or arrest.
This technical brief is one in a series addressing four young key populations. It is intended for policy-makers, donors, service-planners, service-providers and community-led organisations. This brief aims to catalyse and inform discussions about how best to provide services, programmes and support for young people who inject drugs.
This document is a handout produced by an NSWP member.
Let’s face it: some escorts and their clients are going to PARtY and play! Harm reduction believes people have the right to make informed decisions about what they put into their bodies, including drugs. But how do you keep yourself safe? Here are a few tips to keep YOU safe!
You can download this 1 page handout above. This resource is in English.
Harm Reduction International has released a report examining the multiple and varied contexts within which drug use and sex work overlap.
The report provides a snapshot of available evidence on the factors that contribute to vulnerability among people who sell sex and use drugs. It draws on experience from harm reduction and sex work communities to explore implications for practice. Existing programmes that reach people who sell sex and use drugs around the world are highlighted and practical suggestions on how programmes can better serve this overlapping population are offered.