The employees of the only treatment center for female drug addicts in Kandahar quit their jobs after they weren’t paid for nearly a year, and the Taliban have turned the center itself into a military base, local sources said.
Thirty-one female drug addicts were being treated in the center when the Taliban came to power last August. There is no reliable information available on what happened to them.
“The fate of addicts is unknown,” said a female doctor, who worked at the center, “especially women[addicts] are living in a bad situation in the entire city and villages.”
The treatment center which was known as “bed 20” drug addicts treatment hospital had 18 employees including 14 women and four men, she added. She spoke on the condition of anonymity due to safety reasons.
She said the center didn’t have enough personnel and facilities even before the Taliban, but nonetheless it provided some support for women to recover from addiction. The center was also providing health counseling in the districts of Kandahar.
Journalists, who visited Kandahar prison recently, said some female drug addicts were held captive there. Among 350 prisoners, who were released by the Taliban in Kandahar on the occasion of Eid-ul Adha, four were female drug addicts.
Most female addicts are being introduced to drugs by their husbands or male relatives. Some also fall victim to addiction when they are working to harvest poppies.
Kandahar is one of the major producers of opium in Afghanistan.
There is no data available about the number of women drug addicts in Kandahar. But the total number of women who suffer from addiction in the entire country is around 850,000, according to an estimate by the former government.
Another female doctor at the center, who also spoke on the condition we don’t use her name, said the number of people with addiction is increasing in Kandahar due to poverty and mental health problems. She said her colleagues met the Taliban’s local health officials many times to find a solution for the problem, but no practical action was taken to pay their salaries and keep the center operational.
“It has been months that our patients are left to their own fate,” she said. “We call on the international community and the current rulers to immediately address the problem.”
The center was funded by the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs or INL before the fall of the former government, according to its employees.
Among those who lost their jobs at the center was a 50-year-old cleaner. She said she hasn’t received her salary for a nearly year, and that her family don’t have enough to eat.
“I swear to God, it has been months that we don’t have cooking oil at home. We only eat bread,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
