report-back on the 52 session of the cnd 2009

8/9/2019 Report-back on the 52 Session of the CND 2009

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Youth RISE Report on Commission on Narcotic Drugs Activities

The High Level Segment on Drugs, March 11-12 2009, was held in conjunction with the 52nd Session onthe Commission on Drugs. Youth RISE, the only international, youth-led harm reduction and drug policyorganization, successfully coordinated the participation of young people in this significant internationalpolicy event.

The participants:Youth RISE, in partnershipwith the Global YouthCoalition on HIV/AIDS,selected 5 youthparticipants from differentregions of the world. Theyoung peoples selectionwas based on severalcriteria, including:experience with harmreduction, drug policy andHIV/AIDS advocacy work,

knowledge of regional andinternational issuesaffecting young people whouse drugs, personalexperience with substanceuse and/or active involvedin drug user advocacy/activism, membership of atleast one internationalnetwork. The participantscame from Canada, Nepal,India, Ukraine, Algeria andBrazil, and an additionalpartner member was from

the US.

The advocates included;

Ishwarchandra Haobam Singh (from Manipur, India) is a former injecting drug user and member of theManipur intravenous drug users league. Ishwar is an experienced community leader and has worked onnumerous HIV/AIDS initiatives such as working as an HIV/AIDS counsellor at catholic medical center,serving as a Regional Focal Point for Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS-South Asia for the term 2007,writing feature articles related with drugs and HIV/AIDS for Health and Development Network (HDN) as akey correspondent and working as a project manager in a project supported by AVAHAN (Bill and Gatesfoundation HIV/AIDS initiative in India).

Sujan Jirel is 22 years old and lives in Katmandu, Nepal. He started using drugs at age 18, and by age19 he was injecting. Since being diagnosed with HIV, he has entered drug treatment and joined classes,

meetings and counselling to stop using. He works as Counselor Officer in Family Planning Association ofNepal (FPAN) HIV & Sexual and Reproductive Health toll free hotline counseling service and also is arepresentative in AIDS Alliance Nepal (AAN) of and for people living with HIV/AIDS. He will share hisexperience in Nepal and as a young person living with HIV.

Kris Krane is the executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the leading organizationworking to mobilize students to change punitive drug policies, particularly those that negatively impactyoung people and students. Mr. Krane took over as SSDP's executive director in January 2006, and hasplaced an emphasis on encouraging SSDP chapters to work on policy change at the campus level.During his tenure at SSDP, the organization successfully convinced members of Congress to scale back


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the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty, the law that automatically denies federal financial aid to students withdrug convictions, removing the penalty's retroactivity. The organization also filed a lawsuit in federal courtchallenging the constitutionality of the penalty.

Ivens Reis Reyner is a 19 year old youth advocate from Brazil, he is the Latinamerica Regional FocalPoint for the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, a youth-led global network of over 5,000 young leadersfighting the spread of HIV and AIDS in 150 countries worldwide, he also served during 2008 as the

National Focal Point for Brazil. Ivens is currently being volunteer in the Brazilian NGO Reprolatina.

Anna Koshikova is from Ukraine. She work with the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS which is dedicated to fighting the HIV epidemic in Ukraine, regionally and internationally andbelieves that People Living with HIV and AIDS should be central to the formation of policy, thedevelopment of services and the monitoring of implementation.

Khalil Sakri is a medical student from Algeria. He coordinates harm reduction and HIV/AIDS workshopswith a team of Young Scientist and has been actively involved in bringing harm reduction to his country.He is very involved in engaging young people and was a vocal advocate during the Beyond 2008 NGOForum in Vienna, which is also where he connected with Youth RISE.

Caitlin Padgett has been working for 10 years in peer based, youth-led HIV/AIDS and harm reduction

programs. She is currently the Youth RISE International Coordinator. As a peer volunteer and then projectcoordinator with YouthCO AIDS Society, Canadas only youth-driven HIV/AIDS prevention and supportagency, Caitlin became increasingly committed to the principles of young engagement.

Kyla Zanardi, 21, is fourth year Women Studies student at Queens University in Canada. She has beenwith Youth RISE since 2006, just after it was launched in Vancouver, Canada acting as the Co-coordinatorof Youth RISE. Apart from Youth RISE she works with Queens Project on International Development wasone of the founded of Young Engaging Youth Canada.

Planning:

Due to the geographic distances and significant time differences, planning was primarily conducted viaemail and chat meetings. Participants were encouraged to introduce themselves to one another, develop

advocacy messages and network online. Three planning chat meetings were held to both plan advocacymessages and logistical details.A training package was developed that included the following documents:

- Logistical Information on the Meeting and the related UN agencies- All of the treaties and agreements made by UN bodies regard drug policy and human right issues- International Drug Policy Consortium regional and CND briefings- Overview of harm reduction, drug policy and youth engagement issues.

Youth Advocate Ivens from Brazil writes, Our planning were really well prepared, mainlythe documents and the guide to go through the documents I think that the chats were agreat tool to approach each other, but I think we could have used the chats to go deeply on theissues of the meeting, for example "how to try to change the declaration".

Youth Advocate Anna from Ukraine said: Regular chat meetings were really important

because we all came with the same clear vision of what we are going to do instead of gettingtheir and starting to discuss this in our group from the very beginning. It was useful to receivethe preliminary agenda of the meeting. The training package was extremely useful in terms ofunderstanding the whole system of the decision-making process and last trends in drug policydevelopment. Also I think we did a great job in preparing our advocacy messages.

During this planning process, it was decided to focus efforts on the High Level Segment as it would havea greater number of opportunities for engagement. Youth participants developed key advocacy messagesindividually and from these collective themes were extracted. The Youth Team was networked with a


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variety of planning bodies, including harm reduction, drug policy and media-related email forums. Avariety of experiences advocates supported the development of Youth RISEs advocacy materials.

See attached Advocacy Letter and flyer that were developed prior to the meeting.

Arrival, March 8th and 9th:

The Youth RISE Coordinators arrived a day prior to the participants arrival. This allowed for necessarypreparation of orientation materials and arrangement. Youth RISE and Students for Sensible Drug Policyhad a strategy meeting to prepare for the week.The participants arrived on March 9th. Youth RISE coordinators met each participant at the airport andtraveled with them back to the hotel.

Training and Networking Day, March 10th:

Participants met in the morning and traveled to Caf Museum together. The training day consisted of areview of training package and of the advocacy materials. Participants further developed collectiveadvocacy messages and gave personal examples from their home countries.

Judith Butler, the UNODC staff member now appointed to the youth file met with the group. Eachparticipant was able to describe the situation for young people who use drugs an/or affected by drugpolicy in their home countries and give personal examples if they chose to. Judith reported on youth-related initiatives within the UNODCs HIV/AIDS program and everyone discussed whether and howYouth RISE and UNODC could work together.

Ishwar from India said: The training day was good and I think as far as I am concern it was veryuseful. Each one of us had the opportunity to share our perspectives and we were also able togenerate some good discussion. Meeting with Judith was pretty cool! at least there is someonewho really concern with the issues of young people.

Anna from Ukraine wrote:Most useful was to go through our main arguments and ideas interms of involving young people in development of drug policies. It was very useful to come upwith some real examples of consequences of not including young people in development of drug

policies. Meeting with Judith was also important, at least we made her understand that youngpeople need harm reduction services now!

The participants then traveled together to the NH Hotel for theInternational Drug Policy Consortiums Regional Briefings andNetworking event. Each participant had the opportunity to present onthe issues facing young people in their region.


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After the networking event, the group ate together and thenparticipated in a poster making party to prepare for thedemonstrations the following day. When asked which

planning activity was the most useful, Ishwarwrote:Making poster because it was awesome to crack our brainand came up with consensus decision.

High Level Segment, March 10th:

Participants met in the morning and traveled together tothe UN. The group joined with the Hungarian CivilLiberties Union (HCLU) and International Network ofPeople Who Use Drugs (INPUD) in a demonstrationoutside of the UN. Youth Participants carried signs andpassed out flyers with slogans such as:

Youth Wont Wait 10 More Years! Harm Reduction forYouth NOW!

Stop Putting Youth in Jail for Using Drugs! Evidence-based Treatment NOW!

Youth Die While Governments Deny!

Anna: The protest was very well prepared and is an interesting andeffective advocacy event to be used for advocating efforts in othercountries.Sujan: It (the protest) was very creative and innovative way toadvocate and great experienced.

Several participants were interested in the opening sessions and entered the HLS to watch. Throughoutthe HLS, all of the participants had the opportunity to see the report of their home country delegation andmany had the opportunity to interact with some of the government delegates.

The youth participant from India was interviewed the UNODC and AP news station. He was asked manyquestions about services for drugs users and when asked what one message he would convey todelegates of the HLS, he responded: From the bottom of my heart, we need harm reduction and moreinvolvement of young people.

Here is what some of the participants said asked about the side events and civil society activities:

Ishwar from India: I think the side event was better than ministerial level meeting. It couldgenerate discussion and share thoughts and ideas on the common issue that we as a civil societyfacing due to this war on drugs. What they discussed and presentation during the ministerial level


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meeting was a kind of exaggeration which is completely not happening in reality. Of course theprotest was very good because it went out peacefully and bring the due attention of internationalcommunity over the issue of harmful consequences of war on drugs and need of harm reduction.

Anna from Ukraine: Overall side events were more useful than the official part because theygave opportunity for discussion, were less formal so participants could bring up issues which theyconsidered the most important, all the participants were in equal position no matter if they were

official representative or civil society.

Sujan said: Meaningful involvement of civil society participation is also most important part inpolicy, programme and decision level process.

High Level Segment, March 12th:

The group traveled together to the side event 10 years of Neglectful Drug Policies: International DrugPolicy and Access to Essential Medical and Harm Reduction Services Youth RISE participant Sujan fromNepal spoke on this panel, giving a presentation titled Affected by 10 years of Neglect: Young PeopleSpeak Out. For his complete presentation, see Annex 1.

Sujan wrote about his experience: Being myself as a

speaker in a satellite session, it was very meaning fulland useful for me.

Youth RISE coordinator was one of two NGOs invited tospeak on the Demand Reduction Roundtable. For herspeech, please see Annex 2.

Heres whatAnna thought about Youth RISEs role at the HLS: Youth RISE played a leading roleat HLS in brining up issues of young people and their involvement in drug policy development.For next time if its possible we should ensure active participation (speech or presentation) ofrepresentative of Youth RISE in as many the sessions and round tables as we can.

Throughout the HLS, youth participants attempted to distribute advocacy materials and interact withdelegates and officials. Each participant tried to connect with their countrys government delegation.

Sujan wrote about this aspect: Every countries had their own policy and programme and acountry report on narcotic drugs and this is a very valuable aspect of my experienced, but I feelcheerless to say that currently, our country situation is concerning and there is only NEPAL namewas mention in HLS on CND but no government delegation from Nepal.

Challenges:

Engaging with Country Delegates - One of the most significant challenges was trying to engage andinteract with country delegates. There were no UN formally organized events where NGOs had theopportunity to discuss or debate with country delegations in regards to drafting of the declaration or


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during the HLS. There were few speaking opportunities for NGO participation, and the few that wereavailable were often left to the end of the roundtables or on separately organized side events that hadlittle delegate representation.

Distribution of advocacy materials -Youth RISE attempted to arrange with UN circulation staff to have ouradvocacy material distributed to all country delegates, however this could not be facilitated. Much ofYouth RISEs advocacy material was distributed during International Drug Policy Consortiums side

events, after the Roundtable speech at the HLS and informally to delegates throughout the HLS.

Anna reflected on this issue: I was surprised by closeness of UNODC system and very strictrules inside the UNODC building, which showed itself for example in prohibition to give outinformational materials and fliers to participants of the meeting.

Lessons Learned:

Understanding UN Workings The HLS provided Youth RISE with a unique opportunity to experienceand engage with UN bodies and processes. As Youth RISE is a fairly young organization, this was thefirst time where a number of young people had the opportunity to collectively work together and advocateat such a level. The impact of the UN and its decision making bodies is essential to the work of YouthRISE, as it is one of the primary policy indicators for the harm reduction movement. Prior to this meeting,

only one individual in the group had access to UN participation. It provided the organization with theknowledge around who is responsible for what decisions, the ways in which the decisions that affectmillions of young people are made and the activities of various UN bodies such as UNODC and the INCB.

Ivens reflected on what he learned about UN processes: When I arrived in the meeting I wasunsure about how I would as young person make the difference. I just was sure that I wanted to

put youth-friendly language in the document.During the initials discussions I was clearly advised that would be a really closed meeting andthat the Civil Society role were difficult due to the really conservative view of many governments.During the meeting I tried to catch the people that I thought that could help us in the insertion ofreferences of young people in the declaration, but I could not be so well succeed as I hoped.

Anyway I could do good contacts and share my thought on youth and drugs. On the declaration Iwas really surprised with the approach that they gave to youth, we can not deny that was a

progress has the mention of young people, not in the best approach, because we are not just "themost precious asset", we are more then this and we can totally participate effectively in theconstruction of policies on drugs around youth.

New advocacy strategies One of the most important lessons learned was the ways in which we canstrategize for upcoming UN meetings or events. During the meeting, it became ever present that the mostchange and influence throughout the meeting was done with country delegation. For the followingmeetings, we stress the importance of having young people contribute and participate on countrydelegation.

Ishwar: I was very surprised to know that in many countries drug user are being criminalized inthe name of war on drugs and not only this innocent people are affected by this drastic steps. Itwas kind of interested to meet different people and share thoughts and ideas on the commonissues.

Ivens: The Youth RISE goals were really to achieve, due to the almost inexistent youthparticipation in the meeting. In a middle of a huge meeting as this, and really bureaucratic it isreally hard to get space to have the youth voice heard, and Youth RISE used all accessible

possibilities to make our voice heard, in officially and unofficially ways.


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Successes:

Reporting Youth RISE website, CND blog, HR2, TalkingDrugs interviews, AP and UNODC

During the HLS, Youth RISE held a blog and a featured articleon the main page of the Youth RISE website. Other websitessuch as cndblog.com and ihrablog.net reported on youth issues

and uploaded all the presentations done by the youngadvocates. In addition, Youth RISE video recorded a briefpromo and informational clip on youth issues, featuring all theyoung advocates, which can be found on the talkingdrugs.org.The young advocates also appeared in several of theHungarian Civil Liberty Union films produced from the HSL,these can be found here at http://www.youtube.com/user/HunCivLibUnion.

Visibility of Young People The number young advocates present at the meeting was a first for theCND and HLS. Despite our small numbers, the diversity of Youth RISEs team and energy of the

participants meant that we were quite visible within the meetings.

Anna commented: Taking into consideration the rigidity of UNODC and high-level meetings as awhole I think that YouthRISE had a significant visibility at the meeting. For next time we shouldthink about youth representatives speaking at more sessions and maybe having same T-shirts towear in the meeting.

Youth participation on a Roundtable- Youth RISE was one of 10 NGOs who were invited to present ona roundtable, and the only youth NGO represented formally within the HLS. This is quite significant andensured that the youth perspective that was presented at the High Level Segment reflected aperspective that was grounded in human rights-based and harm reduction philosophies.

Said Ivens: Having young people involved in a meeting as this one, it is really important to showpeople that we are aware on the decisions that are being made that affect us and that we want toparticipate in the construction of the policies, even not being not so welcomed this time, it is reallyimportant participate to expand our space and participation on those events.

Experiential Learning - For Youth RISE as an organization, and for each other youth activists who werefunded to participate, it was crucial to have the learning experience of working within an international UNpolicy forum. Opportunities such as the High Level Segment of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs arefew and far between, and it is quite significant that Youth RISE was able to participate in this event.In addition to participation in the High Level proceedings, Youth RISE was able to collaborate and partnerwith a variety of drug policy reform, harm reduction and user activists. The youth participants gained a lotfrom both the planning and execution of the civil society events and direct action.

In response to what was the most valuable aspect of your experience, Kyla fromCanada responded; Learning the bureaucracy and effectiveness (ineffectiveness) of UNagencies working on drug related issues. Made me think, We have ALOT more work to do ....

Also learning from the different experiences that many of the advocates brought to the table.

Ishwar from India: The role of Youth Rise should be there in the years to come also. I am verypleased with the efforts taken up by Youth Rise to ensure youth participation in this HLS. And Ithink it was a right time and right platform to advocate about the youth participation at every levelsince young people play a key role in any development program. Whether it was a small or bigrole, we were able to address our issues through this HLS. My suggestion for the next time would
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be to invite more youth in HLS and organize youth plenary session inviting all the civil society whocome to participate in it and also come up with own draft declaration.

Sujan: Youth RISE involved in the HLS is important because YR have a powerful voice for ayoung people issues in HLS.

Anna: Inclusion of young people into drug policy development and approval is a very long and

complex process so our representatives should be visiting as much meetings of such level andsignificance as they can in order to bring up issues of young people over and over again so overtime awareness of policy-makers on issues of young people and drugs will be raised.

Ishwar: Keep the good works going, as long as thereis commitment and determination we will achievewhat we are expecting. Youth RISE can count on meat any time.


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services.

Challenge the discrimination and stigmatization of young drug users. We should not exclude them or pushthem away. We must work with families, communities, schools and social services to ensure that youngpeople, who might be dependent on these systems, are included and supported.

We also must ensure our right to participation, this means involve the young people who are most

affected, including street-involved, drug using, HIV positive or criminalized youth. Help us realize our rightto participation by including us in policy making, implementation and evaluation at all levels.I urge young people, students and allies to stand up and speak out for their rights to honest information,to access social health services and young people must be given a seat at the table where policydecisions are made.

In my country and many other countries in Asia and elsewhere, poverty and the lack of employmentopportunities are real problems. Give us a chance to regain our dignity. Provide resources to us, and wewill do so much with them.

One problem that we have not been able to solve or even get closer to the solution is the problem of druguse. We all should take collective responsibility in this failure and move ahead. We cannot remain heredefending our failures. Now, more than ever its more visible that harm reduction for young peopleapproaches are closest to the solution for this problem. Ensure our right to participation. We are part of

the solution. Do take us serious, count us in

We cannot afford to wait another ten years!


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Annex 2 Demand Reduction Roundtable

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here. Including young people in these policy forums iscrucial to demand reduction policy development.

The statements I am about to give come not only from our organization - they were developed inpartnership with the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, the World AIDS campaign, Espolea, Students

for Sensible Drug Policy, the Youth Coalition on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights and Youth RISE.(Collectively represented thousands of youth worldwide)

We all wish to prevent young people from the harms of drugs and drug policy. However, preventionmeasures are often not enough. Anti-drug campaigns are often no match for the many reasons thatyoung people use drugs. Despite millions of dollars spent on prevention campaigns, children and youngpeople continue to use drugs. Despite even more money spent on supply reduction, young people stillhave access to drugs. Young people use drugs for many reasons They use them for fun, to fit in, forsurvival, to deal with hunger, with trauma, to cope and to alleviate pain. The concept of prevention is loston the many youth already using drugs. Telling them or forcing them to stop will not work if their lifecircumstances remain unchanged.

Demand reduction must include harm reduction. Harm reduction is part of a continuum of supportservices and it is one of many tools available to reducing the demand for drugs, While the debate about

harm reduction continues, children and youth were dying for lack of these life saving services.Thousands, if not millions are at risk for HIV and other drug related harms, especially in Central andEastern Europe, Asia and North America.

Are these children and youth who use drugs still considered our most precious asset, as stated in theDeclaration? If so, than we must invest in them as well. We must invest in all aspects of their growth anddevelopment, and work to make sure that the most vulnerable are treated with as much care and lovethan those who have never touched a drug in their lives.

We recommend that drug policy include specific recommendations for young people and take intoconsideration the four guiding principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Non-discrimination: Removing age-related barriers such as requiring parental consent or denyingconfidentiality to underage youth, removing age restrictions for accessing harm reduction services suchas syringe exchanges and opiate replacements, and providing sexual and reproductive health services toyoung people, especially young drug users.

Best interest of the child: All drug policies must adhere to international human rights law. This will ensurethat drug policies would be required to take into consideration those most vulnerable and in need ofsupport such as young substance users and street-involved youth.

Life, survival and development: Honest, reality-based drug education and prevention services, lowthreshold and youth-friendly services, access to education and health services, are all essentialcomponents of effective drug policy that seeks to ensure the high attainable health for young people usingdrugs. Make evidence-based and age appropriate drug treatment to be a priority over detention,imprisonment or forced rehabilitation.

Participation: Countries must involve young people who are most affected (including young drugs usersand YPLWHIV) in meaningful engagement with drug policy and program development, implementationand evaluation at all levels. Young drug users and young people living with HIV do not forfeit their right toparticipation. It is our right to be included in the decisions that affect our lives.

We look to the HIV/AIDS movement to see the critical importance of both acknolewdging the critical needfor both recognizing the realities of young people and involving them in policy. Young people were notincluded to too many years, because adults did not want to deal with the reality of young people havingsex, and they did not want to talk to young people about what they needed in terms of prevention. And in2007, young people age 15-24 made up nearly half, 50% of new HIV infections. So we can see that not


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report-back on the 52 session of the cnd 2009

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