Social violence and exclusion has devastating consequences. People who are excluded include undocumented migrants, street children, sex workers, prisoners, drug addicts or the mentally ill. Sometimes, entire communities are systematically neglected by relevant authorities. These might be people who live in slums, or communities hit by criminal violence and gang warfare.
Our teams provide medical, psychological and social support to people cut off from health services. Our work also involves drawing attention to the obstacles patients face in accessing healthcare.
MSF programmes are helping thousands of women who earn their living from sex work to overcome barriers to health services, in part by training and employing sex workers as health workers in their communities.
In many communities, poor or homeless people who use drugs are marginalised and excluded from life saving programs. At MSF we have projects in place which provide methadone and clean needs to people who cannot afford private drug habilitation programs, as well as counselling and other methods of drug habilitation such as yoga and meditation.
Sexual and gender-based violence is a medical emergency, but there is often a dire lack of healthcare services for victims.
In 2023, the number of projects supporting victims of sexual violence increased dramatically in places where MSF works around the world, particularly in Democratic Republic of Congo. There, ongoing and escalating conflict as well as dire conditions in camps for displaced people have heightened the risk of sexual violence, resulting in unprecedented numbers of survivors seeking care from our teams.
We provide satellite clinics which provide some of the most rural communities in the world access to testing and treatment for many chronic diseases such as HIV and TB.
It is thanks to the support and generosity of people and organisations that our teams can provide independent, impartial medical humanitarian care where it’s needed most.
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