Panel: Volodomy Tymoshenko (Ukraine), Ivan Dobryshin (Kazakhstan, Ministry of Internal Affairs), Fariba Soltani (UNODC), Aldo Lale-Demoz (Portugal), Tofik Murshudulu (UNODC), Tatyana Fedorovych (Belarus)

Aldo Lale-Demoz. Deep concern about evidence based, meeting SDG with regards HIV, current rends it’s going to be very difficult to meet target, commitment in UNGASS 2016, HIV infections among people who inject drugs has increased in some regions faster than others, 2015 150 thousand women and children have been infected, we know what to do, aid response, need to dismantle barriers to treatment, rule of the police critical key to HIV response success, promote and support consolidated harm reduction and police response, today session will highlight need for harm reduction and law enforcement approaches for HIV and hep C response, role of law enforcement.

Tofik Murshudulu. Talk to law enforcement officials it is quite superficial, historically law enforcement has always played a critical role in public health, many example where law enforcement agencies have led by example, situation does not require traditional law enforcement action, keep order, help government and communities to act in the right way, law enforcement agencies have not been sufficiently integrated, culture of operational policies in this area should be further explored, law enforcement approach critical impact in help to PWUD, very little guidance exist that considers issue from their perspective, law enforcement and civil society collaboration, within programs and projects now finding more and more references to these issues, not easy issue, very important issue working closely with colleagues

Aldo Lale-Demoz. Thank you Tofik, introduce Fariba Soltani

Fariba Soltani. How does the health sector work with law enforcement sector here at UNODC, globally 2.2 million inject drugs, HIV epidemics appearing in people who use NPS, preventing HIV and other infections among PWID is a public health imperative, UNODC promotes harm reduction strategy as a key instrument, providing access to harm reduction services is possible and cost effective, UNODC recognises role of law enforcement forces, UNODC brokers partnerships between law enforcement, public health and civil society communities which suffer from HIV epidemics, UNODC has developed training manual, normative guidance document, meant to support police academies in training, resulting in law enforcement forces at all levels in recognising the unique access they have to PWID, incorporated into Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Thailand, police academies curriculum, also available in UNODC e-learning platform, in addition to developing technical guidance documents, also joint trainings in 23 countries, hope to continue this path, thank you Aldo had to leave for another meeting,

Tatyana Fedorovych. More than 15 thousand people living with HIV in Belarus, concentrated among key population particularly among PWUD, decisions taken such as increased antiretroviral treatment, counselling, extension of OST (covered partially, fully in 2018), interior minister collaborating closely with HIV section of UNODC, Belarus first in central Europe and Asia with HIV service provision inclsuion in police currcula, cooepration between police and CS has improved, meeting attende by reps of unions and CS, continue efforts in extending support to medical organisataion and CS, thank you

Fariba Soltani. thank you, our next speaker from Kazakhstan, insitutionalisation of UNODC curriculums

Ivan Dobryshin. Appreciate opportunity in line with supply reducion and countering drug trafficking and talk about HR among PWUD, Kazakhstan law enfrocement very good experience with UNODC, particularly cooperating HR and HIV prevention with ngos that provide services to PWID, much ahs been done to implant in curriculum of internal affairs forces, manual published by UNODC in 2014, Kazakhstan has participated in a number of regional training acitvities, in June 2016 rparticipated in egional capacity buuilding acitvities, since training has been done in other national institutions on adaptation of the training manual into the univeristy curriculum, decided to adapt a version for the students in training, for theis purpose UNODC prepared the Kazakh version, since beggining of project over 50 alw enforcement officers were trained thorugh this adapted training program, lesson learnt is to better train training staff in order to more efectively train law enforcememnt forces, many officers who get additional training and use these skills on a daily basis, of course talking about benefits intersectoral training centre, we are ready to continue our efforts in this area thank you very much

Fariba Soltani. Thank you, our enxt speaker, Volodymyr Tymoshenko

Volodomy Tymoshenko. Thank the organisers of this side event about how this issue is addressed in Ukraine, like to say hope to change for the better in relationship ebtween law enfrocement and vulnerable groups, fairly progressive strategy, given green light not only in drug policy but also in addressing HIV epidemic, for many years I was directly engaged in drug control and law enforcment, understand inneffeciticvy of punitive apporaches, in Ukraine reamin dominant, instead of countering large drug dealers, law enfrocement prefer to make results by proscution of drug users, this has not impacted positivly on the drug problem, have realised it is impossible to solve this porblem by law enfrocement only, need to reform the law enfrocement paradigm, in this new strategy developed with international organsiation such as UNODC or the council of europe, focus on abalanced approach with dignity of person as a high important value, new strategy reflects the ened of avaialbility of controlled substances in treatment and care, one of the positive results of new strategy, new regualtory framework for use of controlled substances for medical purposes, have conucted large scale information campaigns, in those regions where we carried our duties, however despite adoption of strategy law enforcememnt abuses still have a systematic nature in country, strucutral changes that have happened i the last 2 years inUkraine have decreased the ability of the government, so as recalled the trouble never comes alone, now even have plan to cancel actiivty of UNODC in Kiev, this act may make situation even worse than it was in the last two years, ask for support to avoid worseinng situation, today I represent Eurasian Drug Policy Organisation, institute finalising a strategy for the humanisation of narcotc legsilation in Ukraine,

Fariba Soltani. Recognise advance smade in Ukraine, thank panellists, parnterships are cirtical to advance, have a few minutes for a few questions

Richard Elliot. Side event about harms which can be incurred from drugs and how to address these harms, what do you see as the most pressing human rights challenges in dealing with people who use drugs?

Volodomy Tymoshenko. First of all in the new strategy the focus is on human, all the rules based on importance of state make it impossible, right now using this new strategy removing from our criminal regulation which required punitive approaches, such as obligatory treatment of users which still take place, from general view and human principles everybody understands we should keep same position of user as a normal human, should not only accept it, should find concrete changes in regulations, human rights in official point of view of police were only to punish and this is the main challenge.

Ivan Dobryshin. Since Kazakhstan’s independence, human rights has always been the most important issue, the basic principle of human rights is respected by institutions, in Kazakhstan we have developed institute of ombudsman, regarding law enforcement sector, the most crucial aspect is the level of trust of the population to law enforcement agencies, Kazakhstan has many missions who come to assess human rights in Kazakhstan, I’m not specially expert but I would say that international rating of Kazakhstan are not so low and are increasing every year, when it comes to drug policy issues we have a very clear definition of what is possession and what is a criminal offence such as distribution, most important criteria is today’s topic, turning towards closer cooperation between law enforcement and civil society, currently we have constitutional reform, clear definition of status and obligation of ombudsman institute

Australia. Advice for police who continually come in touch with the same injectors, who ignore police’s help.

South Africa. How do you balance human rights with obligatory treatment, in context of Blue Tooth

Tofik Murshudulu. Training institutes have already best practices, why aren’t they shared? their training methodologies? Let’s think of using this platform for collaboration about this.