Related:

The Road Above, by Aqeela from Community Supported Film on Vimeo.

Aqeela’s film, The Road Above, was completed in Afghanistan under CSFilm’s training project.

It is estimated that out of 28 million Afghans, 1 million are addicted to heroin. Mona tried once to get her husband into treatment, but he escaped and she hasn’t seen him since. Now she works street construction, but does the manual labor wearing a burqa to protect the honor of her family.

[Editor: CSFilm is no longer using the last names of Afghans or the images of those still in the country due to the deteriorating security situation.]

Afghanistan Has One Million Female Drug Addicts

MoPH officials said one million women and nearly 100,000 children in the country are addicted to drugs.

By Tamim Hamid, March 11, 2018, for Tolo News

Public health ministry officials have raised concern about the alarmingly high number of female drug addicts in the country.

According to them at least one million women and 100,000 children are drug addicts.

Last year officials stated that three million people were addicts, but the new figure of one million female addicts could mean the total number is much higher than initially thought.

Shahpor Yusuf, the head of the anti-drug department at the public health ministry, said on Sunday at an event to mark International Women’s Day that the number of child addicts was also extremely high – at 100,000.

The children, officials said, were all below the age of 10.

Sunday’s ceremony was held at a drug rehabilitation center in Kabul.

“There are between 900,000 and million women and around 100,000 children who have turned to drugs,” Yusuf said.

A number of women at the ceremony said they turned to drugs as their husbands were addicts.

“I took on drug as my husband was using at home,” Naznin, a woman said.

“Bringing us here (for treatment) will have not results. When we leave here, again we will turn to drug as long as there are smugglers (and dealers). They should be stopped. It is the reality,” Marwa Musavi, another woman said.

Currently, there are at least 20 drug rehabilitation centers across the country that treat women and children. Officials have said however that there are not enough centers to treat women and children.

Last year, statistics were released that Afghanistan has over three million addicts but that rehabilitation centers have the capacity to help only a small percentage of the total number.

However, the public health ministry’s disclosure indicates that the total number of addicts could be a lot higher than thought if women drug addicts alone total about one million.