Written by Judy Chang, Executive Director, International Network of People Who Inject Drugs (INPUD). Judy Chang is a member of the LINKAGES Advisory Board. "In a marketplace of experiences, the privileged inevitably have more platforms from which to narrate, and the marginalised are often spoken for within agendas which are not their own.” - Alison Phipps …
Continue reading Whose personal is more political: Women who use drugs and the feminist movement
Written by Alice Olawo, Senior Program Officer, LINKAGES Kenya Harmful gender norms and inequalities increase violence and HIV risk while limiting the use of HIV services by members of key populations (men who have sex with men [MSM], transgender people, people who inject drugs [PWID], and sex workers [SWs]). Identifying and working to transform the gender …
Written by Judy Chang, Board Member, International Network of People who use Drugs Globally, it is estimated that one out of three women experiences gender-based violence (GBV) in her lifetime. Data on women who use drugs and their experiences of violence are scarce; this is not surprising given our status as an invisible population. As a …
Continue reading Reducing Gender-Based Violence Against Women Who use Drugs: The Right to be Free
Written by Anjay Kumar, drug user activist in Nepal There were an estimated 52,174 people who inject drugs (PWID) in Nepal in 2013 with an annual growth rate of 11.36% (Government of Nepal Ministry of Home Affairs).1 Drug use in Nepal is paired with domestic social, economic, and political issues. Nepal is one of the poorest countries …
Continue reading Key Population Hero: Human rights for drug users in Nepal
Written by Kevin Osborne, Project Director of LINKAGES LINKAGES burst into the global scene with big and bold goals but no one imagined in its second year LINKAGES would be this big or this bold. We did not anticipate this pace of growth or the sizeable interest that would be sparked. Now, entering our second …
Continue reading There is no passion to be found in playing small
Written by Jennifer Hegle, Senior Program Manager, LINKAGES and Catherine Todd, Scientist at FHI 360 This month, The Lancet published an open letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo from a group of prominent Indonesian academics and experts decrying their country’s response to illicit drug use. The letter’s authors called on the government to commit to …
Continue reading People who inject drugs as equal partners in finding solutions
Photo Credit: © Nell Freeman for the Alliance. Subject: Denis Nzokia, Religious Relations Assistant at the LGBT group GALCK. He is one of Kenya’s few openly gay activists. Written by Kevin Osborne, Project Director of LINKAGES With this post, I am excited to launch the official blog of the LINKAGES project! Linkages Across the Continuum of …
Continue reading Introducing the LINKAGES Blog: Making Services Meaningful for Key Populations
