[MUSIC] 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. [MUSIC]
