Essential Harm Reduction Services: Report on policy implementation for people who use drugs

In 2023, C-EHRN and its members assessed the state of essential harm reduction services in European cities for the fourth time as part of the Civil Society-led Monitoring of Harm Reduction In Europe, with 35 cities responding to our survey in 30 countries. You can now download the resulting publication, Essential Harm Reduction Services: Report on Policy Implementation for People Who Use Drugs, and read the interview with Iga Jeziorska, C-EHRN’s Senior Research Officer and the primary author below.

Which type of harm reduction services are most lacking in the cities that contributed to the report?

The ones that are not that well established are those not related to the prevention of infectious diseases as closely as needle and syringe programmes and are not aiming to minimise injecting use like opioid substitution treatment does. Namely, drug consumption rooms and drug checking are lacking in Europe overall the most. This underdevelopment of DRCs and drug checking may become a serious problem, especially in the context of the opioid crisis that we might be facing very soon.

Another problematic issue is harm reduction services in prison. Except for opioid agonist treatment (OAT), this is also an area where there are very big gaps in the service provision in terms of harm reduction. OAT is officially available in prison in most cities, but that doesn’t mean that it is easily accessible everywhere. We know that in Budapest, Hungary, for example, it is theoretically available, but there are no records of people using the service, and definitely not because there are no people who use opioids in prisons.

What would you highlight regarding the barriers in the outreach of harm reduction services based on the findings?

Funding, lack of political will and lack of or insufficient involvement of people who use drugs in services were reported as the main barriers to reaching out to specific subgroups of people who use drugs. Of course, all of these aspects are related to one another. Funding is an evergreen topic which is always there, and the lack of or insufficient funding is a direct consequence of the lack of political will. If there was political support for harm reduction, there would have been funding as well.

 

Are there any main differences in the availability, accessibility and quality of the services between the cities of the focal points?

On the one hand, we have opioid agonist treatment, needle distribution programs and all of the infectious diseases-related services, such as testing and treatment. These are well-developed in general in terms of availability, accessibility and quality.

On the other hand, there are some more innovative services that maybe, as I said before, are not that much connected, at least in the minds of the general public and the policymakers, with direct prevention of infectious diseases. These services that go beyond the ‘traditional’ harm reduction and focus primarily (but not exclusively) on overdose prevention are the drug consumption rooms (DCRs) and drug checking. These are in general more available in Western European countries. Snorting kits, kits for smoking, and fentanyl strips are also less available and accessible.

There are no DCRs in Central-Eastern Europe and Western Balkans. They are quite well developed as a network in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and maybe two other countries. In some countries, such as Greece or Portugal, there are one or two services. Drug checking is similar. There is a clear division between Central-Eastern Europe and Western Balkans on the one hand and Western Europe on the other,  in terms of service scope, service accessibility, low versus high threshold of various services, and the very service existence in the first place.

Harm reduction is chronically underfunded everywhere, but that means something different in the West and in Eastern-Central Europe and Western Balkans. In the East and Southeast, underfunded means that an insufficient number of services are operating or – in extreme cases – they are not funded for several months in a year because there are gaps between grants. Underfunded in the West seems to mean mostly that services don’t have enough funds to develop the offer, scale up activities and broaden their scope. We can also see that in the West, in general, services are more integrated into the health and social care systems, and in the East, they are more standing alone. One of the worrying phenomena that we observed this year, however, is the extremely low availability and accessibility of social integration services, such as housing, income generation and employment, and legal support. Furthermore, for the two latter types of services, we’ve observed significant deterioration in availability over the last couple of years.

We also know from the previous Monitoring edition that there are divisions between the urban and rural areas. Services are focused and concentrated in big cities, and they are lacking in the countryside. The question is also to what extent they are needed in the rural areas, as we also know that the concentration of people who use drugs is also in bigger cities. Some level of services is necessary in rural areas, but what level of availability and accessibility is necessary is something that would require additional assessment.

 

How do you think that harm reduction organizations can use the report? 

We are trying to follow the requests of the Focal Points in terms of the focus and to make our assessments address the topics that are important to people at any given moment.

When it comes to using the report in advocacy efforts, harm reduction organisations can use it to highlight cities and countries that can serve as good practice examples, like Bern or Amsterdam, with holistic, integrated services. The report is a general overview of the situation in Europe, and it can serve as a starting point in orienting oneself in what’s happening in different cities.

In the context of talking to policymakers, the report – in conjunction, for example, with the European Drug Strategy, which calls for scaling up harm reduction services – can help to showcase the gaps in harm reduction services at the city level compared to what is declared by a country or a city in official policy documents. This can potentially be quite a powerful tool in helping organisations in their advocacy efforts.

 

What do you think is the added value of civil society-led monitoring in comparison with other types of monitoring done by major agencies?

One of the added values is trust and the hands-on experience of our Focal Points, and the related kind and detail of the information collected. Civil society organisations are close to people who use drugs, and people who use drugs trust them enough to share honest information. For example, from the point of view of drug checking, this means that we can have very detailed information on how people use drugs, what drugs they use, in what contexts, etc. This is in sharp contrast, for example, to wastewater analysis that can tell us how much cocaine is in the wastewater but cannot provide information about the people who used it and the circumstances, if they used it at all.

For our monitoring, we collect data in a way that is contextualised. This is quite different from data collected, for example, by the national Reitox focal points that focus on the existence of services and perhaps the number of services.

On the other hand, when we ask to what extent particular types of services are available to specific communities and to what extent they are accessible, we implicitly include the element of the needs. That is this contextualisation of data that I mentioned, which includes additional information. For example, seven services existing in one city can mean something completely different than the same number of services in another city because the needs are different, and this is what we address with our monitoring. This is one of the main values of C-EHRN monitoring compared to other data.

Another point is focus on the city level. Most data is collected by European agencies and country governments is collected at the national level. Our data is collected at the city level, which is important primarily because the implementation of drug policies is done mostly at the local level in European countries.

We are also quite timely with our data. We are now at the beginning of 2024, and we are reporting on the data between 2022 and June 2023, a bit over one year of delay in reporting. This is also something that makes us different, less bureaucracy and resulting quicker data processing give us the possibility of being quicker with our reporting.

 

Would you pick one graph that you find significant and explain why it is relevant?

All of them are significant in their own way. What I would suggest is Figure 9 on service delivery for ageing people who use drugs, a category that we introduced last year.  Ageing people who use drugs are becoming a more and more significant group among the clients of harm reduction services all over Europe. The people for whom the first harm reduction services were established in the 1980s are ageing, and there is an increasingly recognised need for developing and adjusting services to their needs, which significantly differ from those of the other subgroups, and there hasn’t been sufficient focus on them so far.

Another question that we asked last year for the first time is the extent of involvement of people who use drugs in service governance, service implementation and evaluation. There are very few cities where people with living and lived experience are involved in the governance of services. They are involved in implementation and, to some lesser extent, in evaluation but not really in the governance of organisations and services. This is something that we need to keep monitoring. The debate about community involvement, community empowerment and community-led services is very lively across the continent, but we are still not there yet in terms of practice of harm reduction services functioning. We should keep a close eye on this and possibly combine the monitoring with capacity-building efforts to improve the involvement of people with lived and living experiences in services.

 

Following a new format, Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network’s Civil Society-led Monitoring of Harm Reduction in Europe 2023 Data Report is launched in 6 volumes: Hepatitis C Care, Essential Harm Reduction Services, New Drug Trends, Mental Health of Harm Reduction Staff, TEDI Reports and City Reports (Warsaw, Bălţi, Esch-sur-Alzette, London, Amsterdam). The Executive Summary can be accessed here.

Executive Summary | Civil Society-led Monitoring of Harm Reduction in Europe 2023

Following a new format, Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network’s Civil Society-led Monitoring of Harm Reduction in Europe 2023 Data Report is launched in 6 volumes: Hepatitis C Care, Essential Harm Reduction Services, New Drug Trends, Mental Health of Harm Reduction Staff, TEDI Reports and City Reports (Warsaw, Bălţi, Esch-sur-Alzette, London, Amsterdam). 

Harm Reduction Advocacy in Europe: Needs, Challenges and Lessons Learnt

C-EHRN and UNITE occupy distinct positions within the realm of drug and health policy. While C-EHRN fosters collaboration among civil society, harm reduction services, advocates, and community members, UNITE comprises elected officials and politicians dedicated to a human rights-centered approach to health.

The collaboration between these networks promises to enhance mutual understanding and awareness, amplifying the effectiveness and impact of advocacy efforts in health, harm reduction, and drug policies. By bringing together a diverse array of policymakers, practitioners, and advocates, this partnership facilitates the exchange of experiences, expertise, best practices, and lessons learnt, thus establishing a robust platform for advocacy.

The cooperation between C-EHRN and UNITE endeavours to prioritise harm reduction and the health of individuals who use drugs, aiming to elevate these issues on the public health agenda. Ultimately, this concerted effort seeks to advance the adoption of evidence-informed policies firmly grounded in human rights principles.

This report offers a summary of findings derived from a series of online consultations conducted among civil society and harm reduction experts. Additionally, it provides an overview of the sources and methodologies employed by C-EHRN and UNITE throughout these consultations. The central content of the report is based on discussions held during these consultations, supplemented by C-EHRN’s previous work in the thematic areas of communicable diseases, migration, and drug consumption rooms [DCRs].

Furthermore, we have included additional references and resources in the concluding section of the document to provide further insights into the subject matter from various perspectives.

Finally, the report presents recommendations for policy and practice aimed at supporting harm reduction advocacy in Europe, informed by the expertise of harm reduction specialists.

Critical partners: Level and Quality of Civil Society Involvement in the field of Drug Policy

This report has been developed by Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network (C-EHRN) in cooperation with the Rights Reporter Foundation (RRF). The report summarises the findings of a study conducted in 2023 which assessed the level and quality of civil society involvement in drug policies in four countries: Finland, Ireland, Greece and Hungary.

In 2021, the Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSFD) established guiding principles for meaningful civil society involvement in decision-making regarding drug policy. These principles were published in the Quality Standards for Civil Society Involvement in Drug Policy. The four case studies assess the implementation of these standards.

EU institutions must respect Treaty on EU and implement structured civil dialogue now

On 24 January, European civil society sent an open letter to the Presidents of the European  Commission and the European Parliament, and the Belgian presidency of the Council of the  European Union. The signatories of the letter urge the three main institutions of the European Union  (EU) involved in EU decision-making to take concrete measures to implement an open, transparent and regular dialogue with civil society organisations in all policy areas, as set out in Article 11 of the  Treaty on European Union. The open letter was initiated by the Civil Society Organisations’ Group of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and Civil Society Europe and includes specific proposals for implementation. The letter gained the support of a total of 156 signatories from 26  Member States. The signatories include 39 European networks, 85 national organisations and 60  Members of the EESC’s Civil Society Organisations’ Group (1).

Civil dialogue remains patchy and unstructured across the EU institutions, in spite of the legal provisions.

This is why the signatories of the open letter #EUCivilDialogueNow are calling on the EU institutions  to:

building on the recommendations of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

As a first step, the signatories suggest a European Commission Communication on strengthening civil dialogue at the EU level.

“The European institutions have all the necessary tools to make considerable progress on our proposals,” said Séamus Boland, the President of the EESC’s Civil Society Organisations’ Group, on the eve of the letter’s launch. “In the next European Commission, a vice-president should take on the task of dialogue with civil society, and civil society coordinators should be appointed in each directorate-general,” added Mr Boland.

Gabriella Civico, the President of Civil Society Europe, said: “The Secretariat of the Council of the EU  and the offices of the European Parliament and Commission at the national level need to establish a regular dialogue with civil society. Civil society organisations need direct channels to engage in the EU  policy-making process.”

While the signatories respect the prerogatives of the social partners in social dialogue, they are calling for structured civil dialogue to complement it. Séamus Boland explained: “Effective and responsible civil society organisations can cooperate with governments and with employers’ and workers’  organisations in many areas of policy. The input of their knowledge and expertise can ensure that EU  policies in all fields and on all socio-economic issues are more targeted and effective.”

Gabriella Civico concluded: “Real civil dialogue and cooperation will lead to EU policies better securing the support of citizens and gaining more legitimacy in their eyes, and thus ensure smoother policy implementation. This is particularly important in a complex and rapidly changing world with many  challenges that our communities and societies need to address.”

 

Background information: 

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is a consultative body established by the 1957  Treaty of Rome. It assists the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the  European Commission. The EESC is the voice of organised civil society in Europe. It represents employers, workers and civil society organisations. The expertise of its 329 Members helps optimise the quality of EU policies and legislation. The EESC’s Civil Society Organisations’ Group is made up of  106 “other representatives and stakeholders of civil society, particularly in the economic, civic,  professional and cultural field”.

Its Members are drawn from organisations representing the following fields:

The overall aim of the Civil Society Organisations’ Group is to truly strengthen participatory democracy across the European Union and to make sure that EESC opinions on EU legislative proposals reflect the interests of all Europeans.

Civil Society Europe (CSE) is the coordination of civil society organisations at EU level established in  February 2016. It brings together 22 European networks of civil society organisations (CSOs) working towards regenerating the European project around the shared values of equality, solidarity, inclusiveness and democracy. Its main objectives are: to facilitate and enable horizontal and vertical dialogue between European civil society organisations and policy-makers and help strengthen CSOs in their activities and relations with the institutions.

CSE’s mission is to contribute to EU recognition of the essential role and value of independent and plural CSOs in building and nurturing a democratic society that is based on fundamental rights. CSE  also works to create the conditions for the development of a strong and independent civil society voice and effective, open, and structured civil dialogue at the EU level, as well as a thriving and enabling civic space across the Union.

For more information and interviews, please contact: 

Jasmin Klötzing
Communication Officer
Secretariat of the Civil Society Organisations’ Group
+ 32 (0) 2 546 90 67
Jasmin.kloetzing@eesc.europa.eu

Margarida Reis
Communication Assistant
Secretariat of the Civil Society Organisations’ Group
+ 32 (0) 2 546 90 36
Margarida.reis@eesc.europa.eu

If you want to stay informed about the activities of the Civil Society Organisations’ Group, please click here.

 

 

(1) When calculating the number of signatories (156), the EESC Members who also signed on behalf of their organisation are counted as single signatories.

Expert & Member Meeting 2023

In December, Budapest gave place to C-EHRN’s Expert & Member Meeting, with more than 130 professionals gathering to discuss the key activities of the network!

To find out more about the event and C-EHRN’s key activities, watch the inspiring video by the Rights Reporter Foundation, and look at the summary of the event below.

On Monday the 4th, our focal points discussed the civil society monitoring of harm reduction in Europe process, ways to use the C-EHRN Monitoring data for advocacy purposes and getting familiar with a new data collection and visualisation tool for the C-EHRN monitoring activities. In the meantime, the partners of the Drug-Prep Project had insightful discussions on foresight research and other project activities.

 

A press conference also took place, introducing drug consumption rooms, drug checking in Europe and the example of Portugal’s health-based drug policy approach, sharing the message that “not only the richest countries in the world can implement efficient drug policies based on decriminalisation” (Marta Pinto, University of Porto). As a result, the conference gained coverage in RTL, one of Hungary’s most popular commercial TVs.

At the end of the day, some meeting participants visited Válaszút Misszió Drogkonzultációs Iroda, learning about their services and the Hungarian context.

Tuesday began with C-EHRN’s director, Katrin Schiffer, opening the official programme for all participants of the event, also introducing C-EHRN’s new visual identity which we launched with the event! During the plenary sessions, we discussed various topics including drug policy and harm reduction in Hungary, civil society monitoring and data collection, and some of the network’s main activities, including research on harm reduction in prison and harm reduction and gender.

Throughout the afternoon’s parallel sessions, we also talked about infectious diseases in community-based settings in the context of the BOOST project, while a migration workshop took place through the SEMID-EU project, and those interested could find out about the application of foresight research in the context of the drugs field (Drug-Prep project). In the following sessions, the civil society involvement case studies conducted in 4 European countries were discussed, while we also spoke about drug consumption rooms and mental health.

Wednesday’s parallel sessions gave space for an engaging conversation about C-EHRN’s strategy for 2024-2028, while drug checking and the state of harm reduction in five European cities (Amsterdam, Bălţi, London, Esch-sur-Alzette and Warsaw) were also discussed.

The Semid-EU plenary delved into the needs and (harm reduction) service access of marginalised migrants who use drugs in the EU, after which we reflected on the outcomes of the time spent together at the member & expert meeting.

To capture the event, we bring you a collection of images below.

Follow some of the sessions of our 2023 Expert & Member Meeting online!

We are happy to announce that during our 2023 Expert & Member Meeting, some of the sessions on Tuesday the 5th and Wednesday the 6th of December will be streamed online!

Follow the plenary sessions on Tuesday!
Follow the Civil Society Involvement & Advocacy workshop on Tuesday!
Follow the plenary sessions on Wednesday!
 
 

The plenary sessions on Tuesday the 5th of December can be followed via this link. The streamed plenary sessions are the following:

  • 9.30-9.50 Welcome & Opening
    Moderator: Tony Duffin (Ana Liffey Drug Project)
    Speakers: Gabor Kerpel-Fronius; Deputy Mayor of Budapest & Katrin Schiffer, C-EHRN Director
    This session will include welcome words and an introduction to C-EHRN activities and results.
  • 9.50-10.10 Keynote Speech – Drug Policy and HR in Hungary
    Moderator: Tony Duffin (Ana Liffey Drug Project)
    Speaker: Péter Sárosi (Rights Reporter Foundation)
    Harm reductionists face different political and cultural realities in different geographical regions of Europe. In some countries in the West the question today is mainstreaming and innovation. But in other countries, mostly in the East, even basic harm reduction programs are confronted with a more existential question: that of mere survival. There is a growing populism and shrinking space for civil society. On top of this, the drug scene is changing and constantly challenges us to find new methods, to reach out to new groups and to redefine what harm reduction means. The keynote speech will address the challenges and highlight some opportunities ahead of the harm reduction movement in Europe.
  • 10.10-11.00 Policy Dialogue
    Moderator: Tony Duffin (Ana Liffey Drug Project)
    Panel Members: Ákos Topolánszky (European Social and Economic Committee / Hungarian Federation of the Drug Therapy Institutions), Róbert Csák (Hungarian Association on Addiction), Anna Tarján, Péter Sárosi (Rights Reporter Foundation)
    According to its last national drug strategy, Hungary was supposed to become “drug-free” by 2020. Despite this ambitious goal, the government failed to eliminate drug use – it only succeeded in nearly eliminating funding for treatment and harm reduction programs. Several key programs had to close down and the philosophy and practice of harm reduction became a taboo. Panellists in the policy dialogue will outline the current drug policy situation in Hungary, address the ethical dilemmas of civil society in a hostile political climate and present some survival strategies.
  • 11.00-11.30 Break
  • 11.30-12.20 Civil Society Monitoring & Data Collection
    Moderator: Rafaela Rigoni (C-EHRN)
    Speakers: Iga Jeziorska (C-EHRN) – Harm Reduction Essential Services, Tuukka Tammi (THL) – Hepatitis C, Daan van der Gouwe (Trimbos)- New Drug Trends, Guy Jones (TEDI) – New Drug Trends via TEDI, Laoise Darragh (C-EHRN) – Mental Health, Rafaela Rigoni (C-EHRN) – City Reports
    The session will briefly present the different publications for the C-EHRN Civil Society-led Monitoring in Europe 2023. These focus on 1) The state of implementation of harm reduction essential services in the cities covered by C-EHRN Focal Points, 2) The state of implementation of the continuum of care for Hepatitis C for people who use drugs in the same cities, 3) New Drug Trends captured by harm reduction providers and trends captured by drug checking services members of the TEDI network, 4) Mental Health of harm reduction staff, and 5) Emergent issues and harm reduction innovations in five European cities. Short presentations focusing on key messages will be provided by the authors, followed by a Q&A session.
  • 12.20-13.10 C-EHRN activities: Civil Society Involvement Case Studies, Harm Reduction in Prison, Advocacy, Drug Consumption Rooms, Harm Reduction and Gender
    Moderator: Tony Duffin (Ana Liffey Drug Project)
    Speakers: Péter Sárosi (Rights Reporter Foundation), Graham Shaw (Consultant), Beatrix Vas (UNITE), Roberto Perez Gayo (C-EHRN)
    This session will highlight different C-EHRN activities, which were carried out in 2023. Short presentations will be provided by C-EHRN experts, followed by a Q&A session.

You can also follow one of the parallel sessions on Tuesday via this link:

  • 16.00-17.30 Civil Society Involvement & Advocacy workshop
    Moderator: Péter Sárosi (Rights Reporter Foundation)
    This session will focus on the meaningful involvement of civil society in the field of drug policy. We will present the findings of a qualitative research, carried out by C-EHRN in 2023. The study consisted of focus group discussions, both with decision-makers and civil society representatives in four countries, including Finland, Ireland, Hungary and Greece. After the presentation of the findings, we will discuss the potential impact and follow-up activities.

The plenary sessions on Wednesday the 6th of December can be followed via this link. The streamed plenary sessions are the following:

  • 11.30-12.30 Migration and Drug Use SEMID- EU
    Moderator:     Machteld Busz (Mainline)
    The SEMID-EU project focuses on marginalised migrants who use drugs in the EU. The aim of the project is to see into the needs and (harm reduction) service access of various groups with a migration background. During this plenary, we will present the results from a literature research and Delphi round, from a community-led participatory research (100 interviews + focus groups across the cities of Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin and Paris) and a series of policy documents and fact sheets. A panel will discuss the implications of the project and will look for opportunities to improve the health and rights of migrants who use drugs in the EU.
  •  12.30-13.00 Plenary Session Closing
    Moderators: Tony Duffin (Ana Liffey Drug Project)
    Speakers: Katrin Schiffer (C-EHRN), Péter Sárosi (Rights Reporter Foundation) & Marta Pinto (University of Porto)
    This session will summarise and wrap up the outcomes of the Member and Expert Meeting 2023.

Participate in the Civil Society Forum on Drugs Survey on the EU Drug Strategy

Are you part of a Civil Society Organization working in Drug Policy? Your voice matters in shaping drug policies in the EU!

Participate in the Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSFD) Survey on the implementation of the EU Drug Strategy and Action Plan 2021-2025 and share your knowledge on the implementation of drug policies. Your insights will contribute to the evaluation of the current situation regarding the accessibility and quality of key demand reduction and harm reduction programmes and interventions and help identify potential changes since the last assessment.

You can find the Survey here.

Responses can be submitted until the 30th of October 2023.

Your participation is voluntary. All responses will be kept anonymous and integrated into a report published on the website of the Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSFD).

This survey continues the efforts of the Civil Society Forum on Drugs to monitor the implementation of EU drug policies from the perspective of civil society organisations. So far, the CSFD has published three reports on the topic:

With this survey, we aim to discover the extent of implementation of the EU Drug Strategy 2021-2025 in the EU Member States and beyond in the middle of its running period. We ask you to fill in the questionnaire providing answers according to your best expert knowledge.

If you have any questions, please contact Iga Jeziorska, the Chair of the Working Group on the EU Drug Policy, at: iga.kender-jeziorska@euro-yoda.org.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Advocates for Human Rights-Centered Drug Policy Reform in new report

In a report of great significance released today, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calls for transformative changes toward drug policies that are based on health and human rights, calling for the decriminalization of drug use and recommending governments shift to responsible regulation in order to take control of illegal drug markets.

The report, titled “Human rights challenges in addressing and countering all aspects of the world drug problem”, underlines the harsh consequences of the ‘war on drugs’ and drug policies focused on punitive practices on human rights. The recommendations include the meaningful engagement of civil society organizations, people who use drugs, affected communities, and youth in shaping drug policies, and calls for the inclusion and support of harm reduction services.

In a statement released in response to the report, 133 civil society and community organizations welcomed its recommendations and called on the international community, the Member States, the Human Rights Council, drug control bodies, and UN agencies to act on the UN human rights chief’s call for systemic drug policy reform.

For more information, read IDPC’s thorough coverage here.

Open letter to the Members of the European Parliament to vote against the Prostitution Report

13 organizations united under the European Coalition on Sex Workers’ Rights and Inclusion, including C-EHRN, addressed the Members of the European Parliament in an open letter, calling them to reject and vote against the report on the regulation of prostitution in the EU: its cross-border implications and impact on gender equality and women’s rights, 2022/2139(INI), which will be put to a vote in plenary on September 14.

“Our organisations are leading civil society networks and human rights organisations. We have decades of experience and expertise in addressing women’s rights and gender equality, human rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV, harm reduction, the rights of LGBTI people, digital rights, human trafficking, migration, racial justice and criminal justice. Within these numerous fields of expertise, all 13 organisations have come to the same conclusion: criminalisation of any aspect of sex work, which is proposed by this report, does not protect the rights of women and others engaged in sex work for manifold reasons, and does not help address the very serious issue of human trafficking and forced labour. It is only by adopting a human rights-based approach, decriminalising all aspects of sex work, and meaningfully including sex workers and sex workers’ human rights defenders in decision-making, that people selling sex, including victims of sexual exploitation, can be protected and serious human rights violations against people selling sex experience can be addressed.”

Read the reasons why we consider the report biased and harmful for people selling sex and other vulnerable groups in the open letter accessible below.