Barriers to Young People’s Access to Healthcare

Too often, the people most in need of health services cannot access them due to stigma, discrimination, gender inequality or harmful laws and policies, including criminalisation.

TrustLaw facilitated this legal research as part of an ongoing partnership between the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), to support young journalists and civil society actors to challenge human rights-related barriers that can prevent marginalised communities from accessing health services.

The report surveys the legal barriers that adolescents and young people face in accessing (i) HIV prevention and testing services, (ii) sexual and reproductive healthcare, and (iii) harm reduction services, in eight countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Kyrgyzstan. The research focuses on the laws which facilitate or hamper access to these healthcare services – the extent to which the laws are enforced falls outside the scope of the research.

This report is produced with pro bono support from lawyers at A&O Shearman in Thailand, Kalikova & Associates in Kyrgyzstan, Norton Rose Fulbright in Indonesia, Puyat, Jacinto & Santos in the Philippines, Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie in Nigeria and three further pro bono law firms in Ghana, Cameroon, and South Africa.