Harm Reduction is not only a set of practices, strategies or approaches to support the needs of marginalised and underserved communities. As such, it is also a human rights movement for social justice. Moving away from responses that solely focus on individual [health] behaviours, harm reduction also brings attention to the impact of social determinants on health.

We talked to Tony Duffin of Ana Liffey Drug Project, Beatrix Vas of Youth Rise and Marta Borges of Social Emergency Unit, Portuguese Institute for Social Security. Following the opening session The Development of Drug Policy and Harm Reduction at the 5th European Harm Reduction Conference in Prague, we discussed advocacy, decriminalisation, and health inclusion, with our guests.

“We manage to be gatekeepers and not human rights services because we put so many questions to let people in that we end up keeping them out. This is the type of advocacy, we have been working on.” says Beatrix Vas.

“How we work with people and how we view people should be changed.” adds Tony Duffin.

And, Marta Borges tells us about how the situation has been like since the arrival of decriminalisation, the “holy-grail”, in her country, Portugal.

Enjoy listening and tell us what you think!

#HRAtWork #HarmReduction #EHRC21