Solidarity and Support. Don’t Punish, with a focus on women and gender diverse people who use drugs – 26 June 2024

Y-Fem is a registered feminist human rights organization which is focused on feminism, women’s rights and movement building to ensure women’s can assert and demand their rights in all spheres of life.

Y-Fem is focused on improving intersectional and inclusive coordination amongst organizations working in the women’s rights and feminist space in Namibia as well as movement building with a focus on rural grassroots level mobilizing.

“Support. Don’t Punish” is a global, grassroots campaign supporting harm reduction and drug policies that prioritise human rights and public health. “Support. Don’t Punish” aims to put harm reduction on political agendas by:

• Strengthening the capacity of communities of drug users and their allies to mobilise.
• Opening dialogue with policy makers.
• Raising awareness among the media and the public. The campaign will also highlight the special needs and circumstances of women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs. Building on partnerships and consensus among women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs, organisations and groups worldwide are collaborating:
• To highlight the need to expand gender sensitive harm reduction services.
• To end violence against women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs, and to improve drug policies from a health, gender and harm reduction perspective. On this day , the demands of “Solidarity and Support. Don’t Punish” with a focus on women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs are for:
• Allocation of resources and long term funding to harm reduction services and networks that are led by and meaningfully involve women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs and are based around care, compassion and individual autonomy.
• Immediate abolition of capital punishment, extrajudicial killings, compulsory treatment, drug user registration systems and punishment for use of drugs in pregnancy.
• Decriminalization of drug use and sex work.
• Creation of gender responsive comprehensive harm reduction services and policy environments that are non-judgemental, non-discriminatory, safe, relevant and supportive for all women who use drugs.
• An end to the distortion of facts that surround drug use and pregnancy and coercive campaigns of abortion and sterilisation.
• Upholding the right to autonomy over the bodies of women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs including choices around safer drug use.
• Implementation of mechanisms for prevention of violence and support for women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs who are subject to violence.
• An end to using drug use as reason for the invasion or disruption of privacy, family or domestic life.
• Inclusion of women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs as a key part of research, planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of any policy or action that affects them.

Please join WHRIN and (Y-Fem Namibia Trust) in claiming these basic rights for women and people of diverse gender identity who use drugs and societies as a whole, worldwide. https://whrin.site www.yfemnamibia.com