No Harm Done? The Experiences of Women Who Use Drugs In Indonesia

Abstract

During the last decade there has been an increase in the number of Indonesian women who identify with using drugs. Women who use drugs are more vulnerable to the range of harms associated with drug use compared with their male counterparts. Despite more than a decade of harm reduction strategies in Indonesia the prevalence of blood-borne viruses (BBV) among people who inject drugs (PWID) are increasing. An estimated one third of people who use drugs in Indonesia are living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The prevalence of the Hepatitis C virus among people who use drugs in Indonesia is 77 per cent. Also significant is the increase in the incarceration rates of women who use drugs in Indonesia. The increase in the incarceration rates of women charged with drug violations is occurring in the context of Indonesia's 'Drugs Emergency', and the Indonesian Government's commitment to the rehabilitation of the korban narkoba (victims of drugs) by directing people charged with drug use offenses to drug rehabilitation services. In this thesis I explore the experiences of women who use drugs using ethnographic research amongst urban women in two settings in Indonesia across a range of domains of their lives: in the community, in drug rehabilitation services and in prisons. Working with informants who are or have been drug users, some of whom are also peer workers in the harm reduction sector, I demonstrate that women who use drugs are subject to marginalisation and discrimination which poses very real risks to their lives. In many sectors of their lives, Indonesian women who use drugs can access less care and services, and suffer significant directed violence, compared to men who use drugs. Set against the backdrop of Indonesia's 'Drugs Emergency', drawing on policy research as well street-based ethnography, this research provides political and social context to explore the intensification of gendered and class-based forms of structural violence as experienced by women who use drugs in Indonesia.