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AFGHANISTAN - DRUGS HOLLOW OUT
AFGHAN LIVES - WOMEN & GIRLS
Lynsey Addario for The
New York Times
In
May 5, 2009
Gender Excerpts from Full Article......Men and boys are not the only people who have fallen prey to the drug; women and girls are merely harder to find. Typically, females, prohibited from wandering the streets, stay indoors, which mitigates their helplessness but shields them from help.
A woman named Aziza, for instance, lives at home with her six children, who range in age from 18 months to 21. Aziza, who like many Afghans has only one name, is a gaunt and reduced figure, possibly beautiful once, but now a woman of papery skin and sunken cheeks and eyes sunk deep in her skull. For Aziza, as for many here, smoking opium is a way to escape a life without hope.
Two years ago, Aziza’s husband died in a car accident, and with no way of supporting her family on her own — women in this deeply conservative society do not generally work outside the home — she fell into despair. One day, a friend offered her a pipe and opium. She took it. Since then, Aziza has been smoking two or three times a day, sometimes in front of her children.
“Opium has been a good friend to me; it has taken away my sorrows,” Aziza said, seated in the corner of her one-room house, with her children looking on.
Kabul contains a tiny handful of clinics that treat drug abuse, but they have nowhere near the capacity to treat the number of people in need. About six months ago, the counselors from one clinic, alerted by the neighbors, found Aziza in her home and invited her to the clinic. Aziza stayed for 24 hours.
“When I need it, it is a kind of an attack,” she said afterward. “I can’t resist the opium; it is stronger than I am.”
With her children standing by, Aziza reached into a cloth bag and produced a filthy spoon, a bit of powder and a straw. Her 6-year-old son, Mirwais, stood to his mother’s left, 10-year-old Sonia stood to her right. Aziza, eyes glazed, struck a match but could produce no spark. She tried again and failed. Finally, Sonia took the box from her mother’s hands, struck a flame and handed the match to her mother.
Aziza bent over and breathed in the blue smoke.
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