Throughout the world, people who inject drugs (PWID) are all too familiar with stigmatization, vulnerability, marginalization and high risk for HIV. The situation is even worse for women who inject drugs (WID), who are often ignored and invisible within the larger drug-using population. National and international research, services, guidelines, training programmes and surveillance concerning people who inject drugs remain overwhelmingly gender-neutral or male-focused. Partly as a result, limited data exist on the role women play among those who inject drugs, and their specific challenges and needs are rarely recognized or understood.
The health and human rights impacts of such invisibility can be very harmful. Women who inject drugs face a range of gender-specific barriers to accessing HIV related services, and in many contexts they remain a particularly hard- to-reach population, even where harm reduction programmes are in place. The stigma and discrimination that they experience, which is often heightened by gender-based violence and abuse, increases their risk for contracting HIV and other blood-borne viruses, as well as a wide range of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
