Publications & Tools

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.

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.

The Global State of Harm Reduction is the only report that provides an independent analysis of harm reduction in the world. Now in its the seventh edition, the Global State of Harm Reduction 2020 is the most comprehensive global mapping of harm reduction responses to drug use, HIV and viral hepatitis.

Fact sheet developed by Monique Tula and Charles Hawthorne from the Harm Reduction Coalition and Cris Sardina from the Desiree Alliance.

This discussion paper was commissioned by OSI’s Sexual Health and Rights Project for an international gathering held June 2006 in Johannesburg, South Africa, about the impact of laws, policies, and law enforcement practices on sex workers? health and human rights.NGOs, agencies, and funders who work with people in sex work have used different frameworks, such as harm reduction and human rights, to guide their work. This document provided a basis for discussion of the pros and cons of these approaches. This was achieved by reviewing the ways harm reduction strategies and rights-based frameworks have been developed in various regions of the world, clarifying terms, noting strengths and weaknesses, and finding common ground for future work.

“Sex workers and their communities are at the forefront of the Harm
Reduction movement because there are strong similarities between drug
use and sex work. Both are heavily stigmatized. And, much like people
who use drugs, people who engage in sex work are marginalized and
criminalized for the choices they make about their bodies.” HRC provides a Fact Sheet o nSex Work and Harm Reduction as well as relevant resources.

Societal stigma and punitive legal frameworks often severely impede key populations’ rights to raise families free from interference and discrimination. The experiences of key population groups (gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, sex workers, and transgender people) are diverse, and are informed by varying levels of criminalisation, stigma and discrimination, and individual factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, race, and health status. This paper explores these challenges, and provides recommendations for policymakers.
This Policy Brief is a joint effort by three global key population-led networks (INPUD, MPact, and NSWP) to bring attention to the lived experiences of key populations and their families, and highlight the ways that stigma and discrimination inform these experiences. A Community Guide is also available.

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.

Supporting sex workers’ rights shouldn’t feel like a reach for the drug reform movement. Both exist to reduce the harm wrought by criminalisation

This report documents the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 pandemic measures on marginalized and criminalized communities. State responses to Covid-19 have magnified the inequalities faced by groups and communities that were already targeted or otherwise impacted by unjust and discriminatory criminal laws, including LGBTI people, sex workers, people who use drugs, people in need of abortion, homeless people and people living in poverty. Putting human rights at the heart of
government efforts to address public health emergency responses is not an optional consideration, it is an obligation.