stigma

Of victims and heroes

In a day like this, where scientific advances and social tolerance towards people living with HIV/AIDS have improved their life expectations, improved the solidarity and partly destroyed stigmatisation, it is time to remember the early victims looking back at how the pioneers of the fight against the virus committed their efforts to combat prejudices and help those who faced a new unknown and underserved death full of the most possible negative connotations at the time.

Women's Reproductive Rights Are Being Threatened

Last month, The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) issued new guidelines on female contraceptive sterilization. In its thorough insistence on the rights of women to make decisions about their reproductive health, it recognizes the ways in which women (particularly those who are marginalized) have historically been made to submit to non-consensual sterilization measures. FIGOs guidelines call on healthcare providers and policymakers to practically recognize forced sterilization as a violation of human rights.

Human and drug trafficking

Last week the US State Department released the most exhaustive report on human trafficking ever published. Representing a year of thorough research, The Trafficking in Persons Report 2011 – now in its eleventh year - analyzes the extent of human trafficking across the world, placing every country into one of three tiers according to their effectiveness in tackling the problem. Human trafficking is a lucrative hidden industry carrying an estimated annual revenue of $32 billion – more than Wall Street took in the last quarter.

Nice people take drugs comes to Canada

February 7-14 is anti-stigma week in Greater Victoria, and this year’s theme is “Drug Use, Dignity and Human Rights.” As a supporter of the week, AIDS Vancouver Island has issued a statement in support of the “Nice People Take Drugs” campaign from the Release in the UK.

Heroin: A Social Reject

Heroin, unlike most if not all other drugs, is rarely spoken about and certainly would not be an acceptable dinner topic whereas something like cannabis or even cocaine certainly would be in the middle class family that I come from.

On AIDS, stigma and drugs

I was educated to think that AIDS was God’s punishment for those who dared living against his rules. No matter how much I tried to convince my teachers or even my fellow students that no kind of God could conceive such a cruel mechanism of revenge for innocent people I continuously failed in my mission. The extremely conservative dogma of the Opus Dei was creating a difference between those holy people who would never be infected for being worshipers and those who were perceived as condemned by their strict sense of hypocritical morality.

For Drug Users, Coalition Serves as Voice in Albany

In a borrowed room in Chelsea on a recent Monday night, 13 people sat under fluorescent lights discussing the time-honored art of lobbying and the cold calculus of political persuasion.
And for this unusual organization, the typical difficulty of being heard among the vast jumble of special interests clamoring for attention in Albany is complicated by the fact that it represents drug users, past and present.

Nice people take drugs cartoon

norrisnuvo's wonderful contribution to Release's Nice People Take Drugs Campaign.

Lot's very nice people do indeed take drugs!

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