What's New

The present Strategy for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (2018–2021) establishes the first institutional framework on gender equality for the United Nations Office at Vienna/United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNOV/UNODC). One of its aims is ensuring that United Nations standards to promote and achieve gender equality are met. It provides a systematic framework that sets institutional standards and defines commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of women for the period 2018–2021.

This report summarizes the final recommendation and the process for developing the guideline on home-based records for maternal, newborn and child health. The primary audience for the guideline is policy makers and health programme managers of MNCH and immunization programmes in ministries of health where decisions are made and policies created on the use and implementation of homebased records. The guideline is also aimed at health providers who use home-based records as a tool for recording information and providing health education or communicating key information. Development and international agencies and non-governmental organizations that support the implementation of home-based records will also find this guideline of use.

People who use drugs are heavily affected by HIV, hepatitis C (HCV), and tuberculosis (TB) and are often neglected in countries' and cities' responses to the epidemics. There are effective means to prevent and treat HIV, HCV and TB among people who use drugs, but resources (financial, human and material) are often not adequately invested to make them accessible. The reasons for this are multifaceted and include criminalization, stigma, discrimination and denial of basic human rights to people who use drugs.  This IDUIT Brief Guide for People who Use Drugs is intended to outline the key concepts of Implementing Comprehensive HIV and HCV Programs with People who Inject Drugs: Practical Guidance for Collaborative Interventions (the IDUIT) related to prevention, treatment and empowerment with regard to HIV and HCV, and point to how activists and professionals from among the community of people who use drugs might promote better policy and practice. 

Despite the low HIV prevalence, a regular public health surveillance programme should be in place to closely monitor the situation of HIV infection among FSW. A similar integrated biobehavioural survey for FSW was therefore developed in 2013 by incorporating into the newly launched HIV/AIDS Response Indicator Survey (HARiS) programme. The HARiS was conducted via commissioning to the Stanley Ho Centre for Emerging Infectious Disease, School of Public Health and Primary Care of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The fourth round of it was conducted in 2017 and the results were shown below.

In Hong Kong, the number of HIV cases transmitted through injecting drug use (IDU) has remained low up till now and contributed to less than 5% of all reported cases cumulatively. However, the potential risk of cluster outbreak and rapid upsurge of infection among the IDU population is always a concern. To monitor HIV-related risk behaviours and access to HIV testing services among IDU, this population has been included as one of the four at-risk populations in the HIV/AIDS Response Indicator Survey (HARiS) implemented since 2013. The fifth round of survey was conducted in 2017 via commissioning to the Stanley Ho Centre for Emerging Infectious Disease, School of Public Health and Primary Care of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

HIV behavioural surveillance among at risk target populations is an essential tool in measuring HIV behavioural risk factors and providing information of the effectiveness of programmes and interventions in preventing HIV infection. To better understand the risk of HIV infection among the male clients of female sex workers (MCFSW) population, it was included as one of the five major at-risk populations in the HIV/AIDS Response Indicator Survey (HARiS) implemented since 2013. The survey was repeated in 2017 via commissioning to the Stanley Ho Centre for Emerging Infectious Disease, School of Public Health and Primary Care of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people experience targeted homophobia and transphobia at every level – including legal, political and social. For sex workers who are LGBT, discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity adds to and intensifies the discrimination they experience as sex workers. This Briefing Paper written in collaboration with NSWP documents the stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBT sex workers and highlights differences in their experiences when compared with other members of their respective communities.

In this brief, we define reproductive empowerment and present a conceptual framework of reproductive empowerment, based on an extensive literature review and consultations with experts in the fields of sexual and reproductive health, rights-based family planning and women’s empowerment. As a part of this process, a more extensive background white paper was developed, including a review of existing empowerment measures in the reproductive realm, which this brief is based on.

Male involvement in relation to abortion services remains a largely understudied area, more so in instances of unintended premarital abortions. Abortion care is an important area for involvement of men. In addition to the potential benefit for individual women, male involvement may at a broader level improve women’s access to safe abortion and quality care since men are partners, brothers, fathers and friends, their experiences with abortion services affect how women are treated and how abortion is perceived in society. In case of an unintended pregnancy before marriage the role played by men becomes more crucial because social stigma associated with premarital sex, particularly in a context like India, heightens a woman’s vulnerability, isolation and alienation.

This publication on the Malaysia National Health Accounts (MNHA) contains twenty years national health expenditure data from 1997 to 2016, estimated using standardised and internationally acceptable National Health Accounts (NHA) methodology. The reporting format follows closely the MNHA Framework and is kept almost similar to previous reporting format with the addition of a few editorial improvements for ease of reading and new sections.