Maternal health and human rights impacts of Russian drug policy

This article describes how Russian drug policy defies international ethical standards in patient care and violates the human rights of pregnant people who use drugs. While the CEDAW Committee previously found Russia to be in violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by failing to ensure that pregnant people have access to gender-sensitive drug dependence treatment, to date the Committee has refused to address the role of drug criminalization in enabling this human rights violation. This article outlines the gendered impacts of Russia's punitive approach to drug use, including its detrimental effects on maternal health, and concludes by urging the CEDAW Committee to follow the approach of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Chief Executives, the World Health Organization, and UNAIDS, as well as senior UN lawyers and international legal experts to assess drug criminalization critically through the prism of the CEDAW convention.