Panel discussion “Impact of LGBT community migration on HIV-related health issues in the Baltic states”

 

Panel discussion “Impact of LGBT community migration on HIV-related health issues in the Baltic states”, organized by the Eurasian Coalition on Male Health – ECOM was held on Baltic Pride.

It was focused on the impact of migration of LGBT community members from Eastern Europe on the HIV epidemic in the Baltic States. The discussion cover the recent dynamics in HIV and STI epidemics among LGBT community in the Baltic States and in EECA as well as the impact of homophobic legislation on the migration trends amongst gay, other MSM and trans people in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the neighboring countries.

As a part of discussion very important topic was brought up by Igor Gordon(Program Team Lead of EHRA):

“According to the largest European research among men who have sex with men a total of 42% of respondents in Estonia have ever used drugs and 2% have injected them. Every fifth who participated in the research used drugs the last 12 months. This example one more time indicates, that nowadays people use drugs for various reasons- for sex, for recreation, to cope with stress. And the most common wrong stereotype is that drugs are used only by dependent or mentally unstable people or criminals. In fact, only a small proportion of people who use drugs are addicted to them. At the same time, the current international legislation and the laws of our countries are based on the assumption that any drug use is extremely dangerous for health and leads to lack of control and dependence and can’t be considered a “ normal behavior”. And this concept is really difficult to accept, that reforming of repressive drug policy that had to be changed is our common goal because drugs become an integral part of our everyday life and The reason for that because: first- we never perceive ourselves as drug users, even if we use sometimes drugs for leisure; second- we just used to live in harsh prohibitive legislative environment, hiding our lifestyle, because we believe that changing punitive drug policy is not our business and we as LGBTQ community and activists have a lot of other things to do. This is my assumption only, but I observe some trends, that in those countries where happen some positive changes related to LGBTQ human rights, at the same time in those countries we also see liberalization of drug policy. Of course, the are a lot of impact factors, but I think one of the most important is a strong and united community and civil society. There is indeed a problem here in Baltic states and broader in our region that communities and civil society groups are divided and segmented with often very narrow vision. Both communities have more similarities than it may seem: we face the same troubles and challenges like stigma, discrimination, human rights violations, limited access to life saving services and so on so on. So, I believe that cooperation between communities key for effective advocacy and impact especially in the field of policy change.”

Thank you for joining #WHO #EHPV #ECOM #ActionNGO Eurasian Harm Reduction Association – EHRA