What's New

For centuries, criminal laws, justice systems, and prisons have been designed for, and by, men. The 2010 United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders, also known as the ‘Bangkok Rules’, break away from this history by establishing the first set of international human rights standards that focus on the specific needs and experiences of women deprived of liberty. This briefing paper provides analyses the concrete ways in which punitive drug legislation has impacted upon the achievement of the Bangkok Rules, and offers several recommendations on how to translate the commitments set in the Bangkok Rules into drug policy.  

There are many people fighting the COVID-19 pandemic with all their might, but not all of them get much public attention. Among them are the frontline workers who continue to provide much-needed health services to people who use drugs. Every day, they stand up for a group of the most vulnerable people in society: people whose drug dependence often goes hand-inhand with social and health grievances, such as HIV infection, unemployment or homelessness. Most people who use drugs recognise the seriousness of the current situation. To minimise the risk of COVID-19 infection for themselves and/or others, they show great awareness of the risks and adhere to infection control measures in places where they use drugs or seek help.

A new scoping review examines sexualized drug use (SDU) among men who have sex with men and transgender women in Asia, in order to understand the socio-sexual context of drug use, to inform effective HIV and drug policy and programmatic responses in Asia, and to guide future qualitative research in the region. 

The mission of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is to contribute to global peace and security, human rights and development by making the world safer from drugs, crime, corruption and terrorism by working for and with Member States to promote justice and the rule of law and build resilient societies. As the world changes and as new challenges and opportunities arise, the present strategy aims to position UNODC to exploit its unique advantages to help achieve this mission. The important and complementary mandates of UNODC distinguish the Office from others in the same field: serving as the guardian of international conventions and the secretariat to global policy bodies; providing strong research and policy analysis; and combining global expertise and a wide field presence to provide specialized assistance to Member States. Strengthened coordination and integration across UNODC will ensure that the normative, research and technical assistance work are mutually reinforcing and able to draw on each other – working to rapidly identify new trends and threats, to develop the responses that are needed to counter them and to share this knowledge and put it into practice to support States.

Digital Adaptation Kits (DAKs) are part of the SMART guidelines initiative and include data and health content consistent with WHO’s antenatal care recommendations, generically applicable to digital systems. They are software-neutral, operational, and structured documentation based on WHO clinical, health system and data use recommendations to systematically and transparently inform the design of digital systems. Components include: (1) linked health interventions and recommendations; (2) personas; (3) user scenarios; (4) business processes and workflows; (5) core data elements mapped to standard terminology codes (e.g. ICD); (6) decision support; (7) programme indicators; and (8) functional and non-functional requirements. This DAK focuses on antenatal care (ANC), and is among the different health domains in which DAKs are being developed.

Recent guidance by WHO and other United Nations partners – Global accelerated action for the health of adolescents (AA-HA!): guidance to support country implementation  – recommended that “every school should be a health promoting school”. This is in line with the redefinition of school health. A standards-driven approach to the implementation of this recommendation is expected to accelerate global progress by addressing key areas for improvement, as identified at an expert meeting convened by WHO in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2015. One of the priorities identified was to establish systems for collecting better data, monitoring, reporting, providing evidence and utilizing that evidence to make policy and to plan implementation.

This report presents a summary of the overall outcome of the First Round of Youth Voices Count (YVC)’s IGNITE! LGBTIQ Youth Empowerment Grants. In the course of nine months from April to December 2020 and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, five youth-led and LGBTIQ-led organizations from five countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam have been approved with seed funding of up to USD 2,100 to carry out their proposed activities.

To mark Zero Discrimination Day, APCOM launches a short report that compiles stories and articles published in the Covid-19 Effect Series, a newsletter created by APCOM to profiles issues, challenges and solutions from the LGBTQI communities and key populations across Asia and the Pacific. Since April 2020, with more than 19 issues, the series has provided a platform to leverage the voices of people living with HIV and LGBTQI to share stories, highlight challenges, showcase innovation and build strength within these communities.

There is an increasing tendency to get service users, such as Drug Users (DU’s) involved in health services and health policies. Participation is seen as an indispensable ingredient for good and effective policymaking and there exist numerous best practice examples of peer involvement in the field of health promotion and prevention. Health policies and health interventions are considered to be more effective and supported, when all relevant parties and communities (including civil society and the final target group) are being involved equally. In addition, policy makers and professionals realise that it is no longer appropriate to talk about and not with the final target group. All kind of communities and also DU’s demand their rights: they want to be heard and they want to be taken serious. 

On Zero Discrimination Day this year, UNAIDS is highlighting the urgent need to take action to end the inequalities surrounding income, sex, age, health status, occupation, disability, sexual orientation, drug use, gender identity, race, class, ethnicity and religion that continue to persist around the world.