A drug rehabilitation center in Kabul dedicated to treating women and children, is facing economic challenges due to lack of international aid. More than 70 women and children are currently under treatment in the center.
Roya, 11, who is addicted to opium, is also using crystal methamphetamines as well. “We didn’t know that we would be addicted to the drug like this. I was trying to quit opium but then I ended up with crystal,” she said.
Roya, who lost her parents to drugs, said that two of her brothers are also addicted. “I do not smoke now. When they smoke, I am thinking about them and when I am going under the bridge, I end up smoking,” she said.
Roya and many other drug addicted women have been gathered up by the Kabul department of security. A spokesman for the Kabul security department, Khalid Zadran, said that more than 100 drug-addicted women have been collected over the last year in Kabul. “We have a good plan to gather people. The people will share their advice with us. A lot of people come here themselves,” he said.
Officials at the 150-bed drug rehabilitation center in Kabul said that they are struggling to provide essential services for patients. “There are children who are with their mothers and sometimes we register children who are bought in from a street or from under a bridge or from Tapa-e-Shamali, who don’t have their parents with them,” said Mursal Ahmadi, an official at the center.
“Our center was previously being supported and our salaries were being paid by development funds. Now all of our services are feeble including the services for the patients. For example, the patients are not provided with vegetable and fruits,” said Shahista Hakim, head of the center. They said that the orphanages do not accept the children who are being treated for drugs, and thus they return to drugs. —Tolo News
