Wajahat Ali Malik
EVERY year on 26 June, United Nations International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking or World Drug Day is commemorated to raise awareness among general masses against drug abuse and for creation of drug free societies by reducing both demand as well as supply of illicit drugs. It is also a day to share research findings, evidence-based data, and solutions, and to strengthen action and cooperation in achieving a world free of drug abuse. Pakistan is a country, where drug abuse is widely prevalent and youth including children are the most vulnerable population, who become the victim of this menace. Drug abuse often led to deaths of children and their involvement in other heinous offences and abuses.
In Pakistan two types of children are most vulnerable for drug abuse, i.e., one who are studying in educational institutions and others who are street children. Children who are studying in educational institutions are school going children and belong to all types of socio-economic background of families, whereas street children are those who live or spend a significant amount of time on the streets of urban areas to fend for themselves or their families through various occupations. Nobody is there to look after or take care of such children because they are in conflict with their families or their families have abandoned them. Majority of street children are involved in begging, or do petty jobs like shoe polishing, car washing, waitering, cleaning in the restaurants, or selling small items in the streets etc. Street children are mostly drug addicts and involved in committing offences like quarrel, theft, vagrancy, sodomy, drug selling, and pick pocketing etc.
Factors contribute towards child drug abuse in Pakistan include child abuse/neglect/exploitation, dysfunctional families where parents cease to give home and family ample time, lack of support by parents, family and the community, family history of drug addiction, easy access to drugs at low prices, rapidly changing social norms, existence and presence of drug dens and cartels, unemployment and economic distress, lack of awareness on drug abuse within the family and in educational institutions, mental health problems(anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, grief, low self-esteem, frustration, and rejection etc.), curiosity/urge to experiment, influence of media portrayals, peers/friends’ pressure, and lack of enforcement of anti-narcotics policies/laws.
The latest statistics on drug use in Pakistan are in the process of compilation under ‘National Drug Use Survey Pakistan 2022-24’. However, different national and international organizations have published their reports, surveys and studies about the use of drugs amongst the population of Pakistan.
According to a report by an NGO, 53% of students of leading private schools in Islamabad are addicted to drugs. That’s more than half of the school going population in the country’s capital. Another survey said that one of every 10 university students is addicted to drugs and almost 50% of the students of elite educational institutions are addicted to drugs. Few years before a research study on drug abuse and CSA in street children was conducted by a national Noggin this study, 180 street children between the age group of 6 to 18 years were interviewed in the ICT and four provincial capitals. The findings of the study show that all the 180 children were drug addicts and amongst them 162 were sexually abused; this reflects a strong link between drug abuse and child sexual abuse. Children may see drug use as a solution to their problems, or they take drugs to forget their sexual exploitation experiences as a victim or offender. The US State Department’s 2022 TIP Report reveals that there are around 1.5 million homeless children in Pakistan with a third of those in Sindh province and traffickers force such children to take drugs and exploit the drug addiction to keep them in sex trafficking and forced work/services like begging etc. According to the UNODC report on ‘Drug use in Pakistan 2013’, an estimated 6% of the population in Pakistan, or 6.7 million people, aged between 15 and 64 years had used drugs in 2012. Out of these, 4.25 million people were estimated to be drug-dependent in the country. Now, these figures have been increased to a larger number which is a whistle blowing for govt. to adopt appropriate actions and strategies to abolish drug abuse, because if positive steps are not taken now by the government, then the situation would be further deteriorated and more children would become the victim of this menace, which ultimately would have a negative effect on the socio-economic condition of Pakistan and bright future of our children.
Drug treatment, care and rehabilitation facilities in the country remain limited. Every year less than 30,000 drug addicts get access to treatment and 40,000 new users of drugs are added to the list of drug addicts, making Pakistan one of the most drug affected countries in the world. As compared to men, women are more averse to having acquired drug treatment. They make 22% of the total drug addicts while the rest 80% are men.
To tackle the problem of drug abuse by school and street children, govt. of Pakistan is making significant efforts to curb this menace. One of such initiatives was the formulation of the National Anti-Narcotics Policy2019 by the Ministry of Narcotics Control, GoP. The objectives of this policy are to protect the people of Pakistan, particularly children and youth, from illicit drugs, their negative consequences, and to achieve the long-term ideal of a narcotics-free Pakistan. The National Anti-Narcotics Policy of Pakistan puts emphasis on three main priorities, i) Drug Supply Reduction (Interdiction), ii) Drug Demand Reduction (Prevention & Treatment), and iii) Regional and International Cooperation against drug abuse. To achieve the ‘Drug Supply Reduction’ objective for the school, college and university students, the policy inter alia provides the precautionary measures and actions to be taken by the govt. and relevant stakeholders for preventing and countering sale of illicit drugs to students in educational settings. It also provides strategies to control the operations of street drug paddlers, since they are the main link in the chain from producer/manufacturer and trafficker of illicit drugs to drug users/addicts. Similar, policy has also been formulated by the Higher Education Commission in 2021 to control the drug and tobacco abuse in HEIs in Pakistan. Although the anti-narcotics policies have been formulated by the government to protect children from drug abuse, yet their implementation in true letter and spirit is still missing.
Some key recommendations to protect the children from drug abuse are inter alia as follows;
i) Adopt the early drug prevention strategies by promoting the culture of rejection of drug abuse in the society. As soon as it is disclosed to someone that a child is involved in drug use, it should immediately be informed to his parents/guardians/teachers and rehabilitation services must be provided to a child from a drug treatment centre for his recovery from addiction.
ii) Healthy lifestyle in children’s life must be adopted by his caregivers. This can be accomplished by engaging children in extra-curricular activities such as competitive sports between schools, tableaus, plays, quiz sessions, sharing of motivational songs, stories and art work etc. to spread awareness on the dire consequences of drug usage and its harmful effects on personal, social and professional life.
iii) A mandatory and comprehensive chapter on drug abuse prevention must be added in the curricula at all levels of education to make the learning impactful and to capture the interest of children.
iv) Awareness sessions about the harmful effects of drug abuse for parents, teachers, children, community at large and other stakeholders must be conducted by the government with the support of NGOs and INGOs.
v) Law enforcement agencies should take special initiatives by registering cases against those involved in supplying drugs to children, and courts should adjudicate such cases expeditiously by awarding exemplary punishments. In this way deterrence against child drug abuse will be created in society.
vi) The govt. should allocate sufficient budget for full implementation of its anti-narcotics policies and develop synergies with civil society organizations/NGOs, which are working on eradication of drug abuse from the society. In this way, drug abuse will be controlled to sufficient extent amongst people of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds.
Legal Advisor of Karim Khan Afridi Welfare Foundation, a national NGO working on prevention and awareness against drug abuse amongst the teenagers in Pakistan.
