They say that the government should seriously prevent the cultivation and use of drugs in the country.
On the other hand, officials at the treatment center for addicted women and children emphasize that if the problems of women who are treated for addiction are not solved, they will turn to addiction again.
Rahima, who is not yet more than 28 years old, the sufferings of her life has been stained with drugs and her life has been ruined.
When I find Rahima at the treatment center for women suffering from addiction, she makes room for me on the bed where she is lying with open arms.
With a smile on her lips, which added to the charm of his face, he talked about the beautiful days of her life, which are now only her memories.
She says that after the death of her first husband in one of the provinces, she decided to marry a second time and spent nearly four months in a romantic life with her second husband.
But the bad customs made her taste the bitter taste of life once again and led to her separation from her husband.
When Rahima’s sufferings increase day by day, she considers the province a prison for herself and inevitably returns to Kabul. But the trip to Kabul is not without pain and suffering for her, on the way, thieves stole her clothes.
This time, she faced the lack of shelter in Kabul, and she dragged her under the Pole Sokhta (it was the place of drug addicts), that’s when her life gets darker before she thinks about the consequences of her work.
Rahima said with anger that gripped her throat: ‘I was not an addict. I had just started my life. I lost the person I loved and my sorrows increased. I went and smoked drugs and became an addict.’
Like Rahima, many women are undergoing treatment in the 150-bed treatment center for addicted women.
On the other side, a woman with a sad look was sitting in the corner, I searched for the reason for her troubled state. When I started talking to her, it turned out that she had just lost her mother under the Pole Sokhta.
With tears in her eyes, she said that including herself, her six brothers, and her parents were drug addicts in Iran.
38-year-old Farzana says that after returning to the country, three of her brothers gave up the addiction, but the others fell apart and scattered under the Pole Sokhta.
Farzana added: ‘My mother was sick, she wished that someone come and take her to the hospital, but no one come. Every day we went begging with my mother, one day she was sick and I went begging alone, but when I came back, my mother was gone and had left this world.’
Farzana says that her husband lives in Canada and has a second wife. She, who has used Crystal type drugs before, is worried that she will not turn to drugs again after being discharged from the hospital due to homelessness.
I was still next to Farzana when I heard the sound of a child coughing from the corner of the hallway. I looked around, a girl of almost 14 years old was holding a child in her arms, she said it was her sister and she has been addicted to her mother’s opium smoke for two and a half years.
The girl added that she brought her mother and sister to the hospital for treatment and is taking care of them.
‘My father was in Iran. My mother has been addicted for five years and she used to give opium to my sister. It has been a year since my sister’s addiction. My sister has pneumonia and we have no home.’
In addition, Nasrin, another drug addict, says that 15 years have passed since her addiction and this is the third time she has been admitted to this hospital.
She added that outside the hospital, drugs are available in every corner of the city, which causes people to turn to drugs again.
‘When you leave the hospital’s gate, drugs are sold in Silo Park. Instead of going to school, young people go under the bridge and use drugs. The government can close the girls’ schools, but it cannot stop drug smuggling. The sale of drugs should be prevented by the government and smugglers should be stopped.’
There is no end to the sad stories of these women. According to them, the Kabul River has turned into a graveyard for drug addicts, because many drug addicts die in the cold nights of winter due to lack of food, drugs, and cold weather, and are buried right there by the river by other drug addicts.
However, Dr. Shayesta Hakim, one of the officials of the 150-bed treatment center for addicted women and children, says that this center has treated 1,400 women and children in the last six months.
Mrs. Hakim adds that currently, 75 patients are under treatment in this center, 52 of them are women and 23 of them are children.
Dr. Shayesta, however, considers the possibility of patients returning again and says that they do not have a suitable place to stay after quitting the addiction.
‘The duration of treatment is 45 days, which includes programs before treatment (awareness), during treatment (inpatient), and after treatment (care and evaluation).’
It should be mentioned that in this center, children who are addicted before or after birth are also treated.
Shogofa Nouri, the head of the center’s children’s department, says that children are treated together with their mothers until the detoxification stage, and after that, they are included in kindergarten and separate programs are considered for them.
‘In kindergarten, elementary subjects are taught to the children. The children who are unattended are brought to the center by the field team and are treated. After the treatment, they are introduced to the orphanage.’
Also, Mursal Ahmadi, a psychologist doctor at this center, says that in order to prevent people from returning to addiction, individual, group, and family counseling programs are considered for them in the last stage of treatment.
‘For one year, we monitor the treated people and have a meeting with them. In the first three months, we have a program every month.’
However, the Ministry of Interior says that the cultivation and use of narcotics in the country are definitely prohibited after the order of the leadership of the Islamic Emirate.
Bismillah Habib, the Deputy Spokesman of the Ministry of Interior, tells Killid that from March 2022 until October 2022, 163 tons of drugs and 54 factories for the production and processing of these drugs have been discovered and destroyed.
According to Habib, recently a number of drug dealers and suppliers have been identified and arrested by the police, and the process of pursuing traffickers is still ongoing in the center and provinces, and we will see good results.
‘After the establishment of the Islamic Emirate, 2,444 people have been arrested in connection with drug trafficking by the anti-narcotics forces.’
Meanwhile, officials and patients have complained about the limited facilities of this hospital and say that the water in the bathrooms is cold and there are not enough detergents available to them.
At the same time, the women who are under treatment in this center ask the government to declare its purchase and illegal sale in order to completely eradicate the cultivation and use of drugs from the country, because if they are available, people will return to addiction again.
Translated by: Shir Ali Jafari
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