I am PLHIV and Chemsex activist in Pakistan working for the wellbeing and advocacy of the harm reduction within the LGBTIQ community where drugs has been used for sexual puposes

With rates of chemsex growing alarmingly in the gbMSM and Trans communities in Pakistan, there are major concerns about addiction, abuse, and impact on health, particularly the transmission of HIV and other STIs.
Due to the Muslim conservative society, lack of acceptance, criminalization stigma, and discrimination faced by the community in Pakistan, factors such as stress, isolation, and violence play into the development of addiction and abuse of drugs for a sexual purposes, Affirmative paths toward harm reduction or intervention rarely available, even majority unable to access safe healthcare and even talk about the chemsex due the punitive laws.
which is increasing the epidemic of HIV in Pakistan.

For 4 years, we have started intervention work for advocacy on chemsex, even though initially the majority did not know the word of chemsex in Pakistan, now voluntarily support groups exist, although very limited, in addition to the groups, and with the support of the Global Fund we conducted research with 319 community members of Pakistan and other stakeholders to better understand the situation in regards to chemsex.

The above work has been used to inform our advocacy efforts on a national and international level

Learning objectives: Participants will learn about the data collected from Pakistan and the methodologies we used to outreach to the community, in addition to advocacy strategies we used in an extremely conservative Muslim society. also, participants will learn more about the type of services that are being offered and how we are navigating local challenges

Expected outcomes: Building partnerships with organizations working in a similar context like mutual capacity building and network building is another expected outcome. With very little historical experience in chemsex there is a growing need for knowledge exchange