Addressing stigma and discrimination in Mexico
Vida Digna (Life with dignity) is a three-year project working to reduce the HIV- and AIDS- related stigma and discrimination experienced by sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and people living with HIV in four cities in the central states of Mexico. The four cities – Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí – currently lack a visible response to HIV.
The project is coordinated by Alliance linking organisation Colectivo Sol, which also provides technical and financial support to 15 organisations and individuals to implement the project. It was designed in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline's Positive Action programme.
Sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and people living with HIV play a key role in the project, which aims to:
- strengthen civil society organisations in the region to reduce AIDS-related stigma and discrimination towards marginalised populations
- promote political and programmatic changes to reduce stigma and discrimination towards these groups.
Participatory site assessments have shown a clear need to support and empower key populations in the region. There is an immediate need to provide key population with better information on human rights, to address violence and aggression within families, to address the poor quality of health services and to look at how vulnerable groups stigmatise themselves.
Work carried out as part of Vida Digna includes:
- advocacy for access to services, including HIV prevention services
- raising awareness of the stigma and discrimination key populations face
- developing information, education and communication materials
- putting key population members in contact with each other, to facilitate networking and support, and to promote advocacy and the defence of human rights
- outreach peer support work
- strengthening groups to respond to stigma and discrimination.
As a result, members of key populations are experiencing better access to health care and education, have been empowered to file formal complaints of human rights abuses, and gained the skills to lead advocacy and educational activities to decrease HIV related stigma and discrimination. Vida Digna has also worked with public sector representatives – in areas such as health, education, police and human rights – advising on their responsibility to provide quality services to people living with HIV.
Despite all this, much remains to be done. Sex workers continue to encounter humiliation when seeking medical care, complaints about human rights abuses remain unresolved, people with HIV are denied jobs, and gay men are harassed by the police.
The final year of the project will continue to focus on strengthening the capacity of key populations to respond to stigma and discrimination and to educate community actors to enable access to services.
