Video 9: Prohibitionist drug policies: violations of human rights of women who use drugs

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En provenance du cours de University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

22 notes

University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

22 notes

This MOOC is the first of its kind, since it addresses critical issues related to drugs from a multidisciplinary, health and human rights-based approach. Throughout the course you will cover a range of questions including what are drugs and why they controlled? What are the benefits and harms of taking drugs? How public health policies can address drug use? You will also learn about the intricacies of the international drug control framework and the negative consequences of widespread prohibitionist drug policies around the world. Finally, you will examine ways of furthering drug policy reform. The topics will be presented by over 40 speakers from scientific, academic and institutional backgrounds, spokespersons of civil society as well as people who use drugs presenting their views. By the end of the course you will have: - a strong understanding of the major health issues related to drug use and drug policy; - a clear vision of why drug policy is debated today; - and, if you so wish, you will be equipped to engage in the drug policy reform movement at your local or regional level.

À partir de la leçon

Module 4: Questioning prohibition-based policies

Welcome to Module 4 which looks at questioning prohibition-based policies. In this Module, you will discover that most drug policies in the world are based on prohibition law enforcement and criminalization of drug use ; and see that such policies have a number of negative consequences on people’s health as well as on their human rights. This Module will also look at law enforcement more closely and reveal how it can cooperate to improve health. You will learn about the human rights framework and the drug control framework and see what human rights violations, stemming from the implementation of prohibitionist drug policies, look like around the world. Finally, you will also see that drug policies are connected to development and the environment, most often not in a good way, with prohibition fueling violence, crime and corruption and impeding development. By the end of this Module you will be able to: • Evaluate the extent to which prohibition-based policies have succeeded or failed in reducing drug production, trafficking and consumption; • Describe the negative impacts of prohibition-based policies on health, human rights and development; • Recall how prohibition-based policies fuel organized crime and trafficking. We hope this week will provide you with valuable insight into the reality of prohibitionist drug policies, for people in communities all over the world ; and help you see what have been the consequences of these policies, in terms of their impact on human rights, health and development. We also hope you enjoy the essential reading and optional additional resources we have prepared for you. Best wishes,The Drugs, Drug Use, Drug Policy and Health team

Video 7: How the human rights framework and the drug control framework interact12:00

Video 8: Prohibitionist drug policies: violations of human rights9:11

Video 9: Prohibitionist drug policies: violations of human rights of women who use drugs14:06

Video 10: A closer look at drug policies in Asia – the limits of extremity in drug policy8:41

Video 11: Violations of human rights in Central America and South America6:10

Video 12: Prohibitionist law enforcement drug policies negatively impact development and the environment6:46

Video 13: Prohibition fuels violence, crime and corruption9:24

Video 14: How prohibition fuels violence, crime and corruption: the situation in Central America6:37

Video 15: How drug law enforcement affects drug markets5:55

Rencontrer les enseignants

Michel Kazatchkine
Senior Fellow
Global Health Center, Graduate Institute for International Affairs and Development, Geneva
Barbara Broers
Professor (in Addiction Medicine)
Community Health Departement, Geneva University Hospitals
Jennifer Hasselgard-Rowe
Researcher and Lecturer
Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva
Aymeric Reyre
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Medicine, Paris 13 University

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I think we need to sort of recollect the context.

The sexual and reproductive health rights of women who

use drugs violated in multi various ways from forced in and coerced sterilization.

Very common to have a misinformation from doctors

around family planning choices and pregnancy.

Women often given the impression that there will be

something wrong with their child if they're using drugs.

Way to few women have access to information around things like the effects

of heroin on menstrual cycles, for example, and they are significance.

We often see women present very late for anti-natal care in

their pregnancy because they didn't know they were pregnant.

They thought if their menstrual cycle stopped that they

couldn't become pregnant.

And of course this happens not infrequently among women who use heroin.

On motherhood, child custody issues in so many countries.

Their registration systems and other mechanisms that track women who use drugs.

And if they are pregnant they can be subject to coerce,

or even forced abortion, and loss of child

custody simply because of their drug use.

And of course there's no evidence to suggest a direct

causal relationship between drug use and quality of parenting.

Many women who use drugs are fabulous mothers and

many men who use drugs are fabulous fathers

The impacts, I guess we've already touched on some of them around sexual and

reproductive health.

Criminalization exposes women who use drugs to additional violence.

Whether it be from the stage or intimate partners,

I often so too often hear in regional workshops I've been

involved in with women activists around the world of rape

at the hands of police, at the hands of prison guards and

in so-called rehabilitation centers, from staff, in those centers.

Gang rape very common,

other source of violence in

the context of intimate partners.

It's common that women will not call for

police assistance in the cases of domestic violence.

And even when they do, there is so

many cases of drug use becoming evident to the police or

perhaps the male partner accusing the woman of being a drug user.

And the police stop seeing that woman as a domestic

violence case and start to prosecute her instead for

drugs, so that's another example.

When we look at examples like that, rape at he hands of the state and

violence and other violations, these are a direct consequence

of the environment created by prohibition and criminalization.

It seems that the rights that apply to the community at large

are suspended when it comes to people who use drugs.

And with women there are variations on the theme.

Another I think example might be project prevention.

It's an organisation, that started in America and

sadly spread to other countries, which offers women who use drugs,

monetary compensation if they agree to be sterilized,

which is in my mind akin to eugenics, it's horrific.

We see women having their children taken away.

I think this is such a significant issue.

It plays out differently in different countries.

I mentioned drug use in registration systems.

So the countries where this is very structured and

difficult to break out of the structure.

Once you're named and on a list,

it's a mystery how and when you might get off the list.

But in other countries it can be a community level thing where the family or

other members of the community involve the state, or

take it in their own hands to remove the child from the mother.

And again, I need to stress this is in cases where drug use is the only issue.

There is no evidence of neglect or bad parenting.

Children are taken away simply because the parent or parents are using a substance.

I think another issue particularly facing women as quite pertinent and

perhaps and even more direct link to criminalization is increased

incarceration of women that we're seeing in many countries.

Again, from non-violent, simple possession

offenses escalating rate of women ending up in prison,

including women that have also functioned as drug couriers in some countries.

Women essentially desperate to find some financial avenue and

often involves because imagine that women can get on to the radar better or

something which obviously isn't always the case.

So I think there needs to be much more concerted efforts

around advocacy pinned to the Bangkok Rules which were

very clear about pursuing alternatives to incarceration for

women for non-violent crimes. >> So

I think, let me just take one step back and say the following, that we have

important international document that countries committed themselves to.

And of course the declaration of human rights is one of those documents.

And I actually think that if we faithfully as nations really implemented

what the declaration of human rights asks for,

we actually wouldn't have the problem that we have today.

I think we created this reality where we have one document that clearly

articulates human rights.

And then we have another set of documents which is the drugs

treaty that actually in terms of international importance

are a lot less important in hierarchy of those documents.

But somehow they frame this reality of a prohibitions,

which undermine the more important document which

in fact is the human rights document.

So I think just acknowledging it that we have sort of painted ourselves

in the uncomfortable corner is really important.

So what are those examples?

The one that really is very close to me and

sort of my heart is what happens to women when you think about drugs.

In United States again, in the sort of framing of the prohibitions

we've created a situation across money of the states in the south for

example, where if a woman drug user is pregnant it is actually

in her best interests not to admit that to her physician.

We've created a situation in which a woman who actually

wants to get help, risks being imprisoned,

risks having her baby being taken away immediately after delivery.

She risks situations in which her obstetrician becomes

basically an implementer of bi-prohibition drug policies,

and actually reports her to the police.

So for me that's one of many, many examples that we have,

where the intentions in principle of the local legislation are probably not mean.

They articulated as though they want to make sure that

children have the best possible start of their lives.

But it doesn't work if well-being of the mother is basically

what is dramatically undermined in that process.

So for me that's something that I feel very strongly about.

Access to harm reduction services.

Again, many people are working out their advocating very bravely and

effectively for access to services of women who are drug users,

whether harm reduction services or drug treatment services.

Again, how are women to come forward and

actually admit to drug dependence if the cost

of that is potentially having their children taken away.

So I would say that that's something that we really are not dealing very well

with and that's one very dramatic example of violation of human rights of women.

If you look at Latin America and

how quickly Latin American prisons are filling with women.

Again, that's another clear example.

The reality is that women are very rarely in this sort of decision making

positions in the chain of the economic sort of drug trafficking economist but

they are filling out the prisons, and why?

Because they're often are most disempowered,

because they are very often single parents that have no support.

And who very often get caught in this drug trafficking reality.

And because they are so disempowered,

there is no one that basically stands up for them.

So while the large sort of drug trafficking

economy will sort of bribe judges,

will pay money to free the men that have been stopped

that are sort of more important in that economic chain.

Women are just let to fend for themselves.

And so that list when it comes to women is really quite of

human rights violation, it's quite impressive.

Very dramatic and I think that this is something that we all should

be thinking more about because the cost overleap incredibly high.

And they're high for those women but there are also for

defenders, for their children.

And I think that we're still doing way too little to

have a thoughtful response to this issue.

Drug courts actually end compulsory drug treatment sort of tools,

as they're often defined by law enforcement.

Are really not helpful if people have no choice.

When it comes to drug treatment and I think most of the experts in that

field will confirm that drug treatment will work if people want it.

If they want it, if they are ready, and

also if they in fact have the sort of social supports to make it viable.

Again, if you think about women who often take care of their elderly parents,

who are taking care of their children,

who are in very dependent economic relationship with their partners.

Here you can't really talk about a choice and

under those circumstances something that again, may have good intention.

Intention turns into yet another tool, ineffective tool

oppressing those that are most in need and are most vulnerable.

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