The Children Addicted to Opium

In a small village in northeastern Afghanistan,
it's estimated more than half the residents are addicted to opium, Even the youngest of children are given the drug


In a village in northeastern Afghanistan, it's just past eight in the morning at Islam Begs house, and the family is already curled up around a burning opium pipe
They include his one-year-old grandson
No one looks twice as his aunt blows the opium at him

It's a common practice here, resulting in rampant child addiction. Residents argue there is no alternative because there is no medicine: there is one drug and that's opium´

This family of five is typical of the growing number of narcotics addicts in Afghanistan. There are an estimated 150,000 opium addicts and a further 50,000 heroin addicts here

Decades of war and poverty have instilled a sense of hopelessness in many people here, making narcotics an easydestructive way to deal with an often grim reality

This village Sarab has a population of fewer than 2,000, and half are already addicts

Afghanistan has few drug treatment services availablecountry-wide, there are fewer than 200 beds total for drug rehabilitation

In small villages like this everyone is linked and every family sinks further and further into debt

Jan Begum, drug addict "All I had I lost buying this (opium) you can see nothing has been left for me. I have been sick for the last six months and I don't have money to go to the doctor, all I had I spent on this (opium)."

This woman blows smoke into the face of a little girl
Khanim Gul, drug addict "I blow opium smoke to her face because I want her to sleep well at night. Opium works for us as an alternative for any kind of medicine."

Beg is hopeful that his grandchildren will escape his fate, he believes they're not yet addicted
But opium addiction in these remote mountain hamlets is so entrenched that whole families, from the smallest toddlers to old men, are held in its vice

 

 

1 million Afghans are estimated to be addicted to drugs, especially heroin. Alarmingly, 40% of these are women and children

 

Three-year-old Said is an opium addict. Without it, he becomes restless.His mother Zarbibi shares her child's condition. She herself is a user and has been one for the past four years.

Zarbibi routinely blows opium into Said's face to keep him quiet. It is the only way she knows how to free herself so that she can work.She said: "Whenever I have chores or work at home, I give my son opium so he would stay calm."I also give him opium so he can sleep. When I realised he became an addict, I regretted it."

There is no shortage of drugs in Afghanistan - and no shortage of reasons for children to try to escape the world in which they are trapped.

Opium eases my pain, keeps my children quiet”

“Women use opium not for fun or luxury but as the only available painkiller to them,” said Mahbooba Ebadi, an obstetrician in Balkh.

When my children are restless and cry I cannot work properly,” said Feroza, a carpet weaver and a mother of six in northern Faryab Province. “When I give them a small piece of opium they become calm and fall asleep, allowing us to work.”

http://www.addictedinafghanistan.com/ for more information