This statement is a collaboration between the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) and the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), including the International Network of Women who Use Drugs (INWUD), and serves as the beginning of a joint effort to recognize and address the specific needs and rights of women who use drugs who are also living with HIV. ICW and INPUD recognize the intersectionality of the experiences of women who use drugs and of women living with HIV, and therefore recognize the need for a public expression of solidarity to strengthen the impact of both movements.
Women-identified drug users and those also living with HIV face significant challenges accessing a broad set of healthcare services, including HIV treatment, care, and support, as well as harm reduction services. These challenges stem from structural, social, and cultural prejudice stemming from punitive drug policies around the world.1 As Anand Grover, UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the highest attainable state of health, has pointed out, ‘The criminalization of [the practice of using drugs] hinders the right to health of all persons.’2 Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently published a statement in the 2014 Consolidated Guidelines on HIV Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Care for Key Populations, ‘Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration.’3
