ID: HR23-289
Presenting author: Aura Roig

Presenting author biography:

Aura Roig (founder director of Metzineres) is a social anthropologist, Master's Degree in Criminology and Sociology of the Penal System. She designed and implemented the first NEP in Colombia and wrote Costa Rica National Harm Reduction Model.She's also international advisor on drug policy, harm reduction, human rights and gender mainstream.

Metzineres. Accompaniment to womxn who use drugs surviving multiple situations of violence and vulnerability

Aura Roig
Metzineres is the first nonprofit cooperative for and by women and diverse gender people who use drugs surviving multiple situations of vulnerability and violence. Metzineres model of approach is based on intersectional feminism perspective, harm reduction and human rights, offering a holistic and individualized responses to more than 360 participants. An approach capable of responding to all situations where there are potential risks or damages related to drugs, drug use and public policies.

Deploying Safe Spaces, Metzineres offers a rich agenda of productive, cultural, creative and leisure activities. Among the services offered, there is the powder room for both smoked, injected and snorted accompanied use of all substances, including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Although it is not defined as a Supervised Consumption Room, as a Social Space from which we claim as neighbors of the neighborhood. We also provide accompaniment and socio-legal advice to the womxn who are in legal processes as a result of the war on drugs and the criminalization of poverty, working always from logics of solidarity and mutual support among equals.

A database generated from criteria of technological sovereignty. In continuous construction, new metrics are collected, with indicators defined by recognizing them as experts of their own realities.

Metzineres activism is combined with institutional work. In that sense, Metzineres has been recognized as a Specialized Intervention Service in violence against women. This recognition means that the vision of harm reduction is incorporated into the Comprehensive Network of Attention to Male Violence for the first time. Recognizing in addition that the structural cause of the problems lies not in consumption but in trauma, social unjustice and inequality.

In consequence of Metzineres work, there are several impacts on drug policies as promoting cross-gender issues in drug-care plans or introducing harm reduction in the networks supporting women surviving violence.