FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — At an enormous landfill in Sierra Leone ‘s capital of Freetown, smoke billows over many years of decomposing waste. Zainab sits there, squinting via the soot. It’s her traditional spot for getting kush, a cheap synthetic drug ravaging younger folks within the nation.
“This kush is so addictive,” she mentioned. “If I don’t smoke, I really feel sick.”
Her present residence, a shack of corrugated iron, accommodates solely a tattered mattress the place she brings her shoppers as a intercourse employee. She makes use of her revenue to maintain her drug habit.
She is one in every of many ladies in Sierra Leone who, on account of social components that embrace dwelling circumstances and stigma, haven’t benefited from intervention efforts after the government a year ago declared a public health emergency over rampant kush abuse. The declaration was meant to implement felony, public well being and prevention measures to reverse the development in Sierra Leone, as kush spreads to different elements of West Africa. The drug has been seized in Gambia, Senegal and Guinea.
Public well being emergency over kush
Whereas officers say kush has grow to be scarcer on the streets in Sierra Leone, critics say packages are nonetheless underfunded and insufficient.
Regardless of new felony, public well being and prevention measures, solely about 300 folks have gone via the nation’s official rehab program, in line with accessible knowledge. Most have been males.
Ladies have been much less seen within the disaster. Rights teams say they’re traditionally neglected.
Just one in 18 girls with drug use issues obtain remedy in comparison with one in seven males, in line with the United Nations Workplace on Medicine and Crime. The company mentioned girls are often extra weak to gender-based violence, financial discrimination and human rights violations.
Fewer girls obtain assist
The state of affairs shouldn’t be so completely different in Sierra Leone the place varied advocacy teams spoke about how girls aren’t as seen as males in coming ahead to obtain help and infrequently don’t get ample assist. Much more males, although, use medicine in comparison with girls, specialists say.
Zainab mentioned 5 years of smoking Kush has introduced disgrace and isolation. She mentioned nobody has helped her, and spoke about days she will get so excessive that “I didn’t know what was occurring round me.”
However she needs to cease for her youngsters. One evening whereas at work, flames engulfed their residence with the 2 infants inside. They survived, however she entrusted them to an orphanage, haunted by the hearth.
“I might love to listen to my youngsters name me mummy once more,” she mentioned, her scarred face breaking right into a smile.
Kush is a depressant. Its brief, intense impact typically leaves customers mindless. Signs of habit vary from sores to psychosis. Liver, kidney and respiratory issues are widespread.
Kush is tough to fight
The drug’s evolving composition, low price and widespread availability make it tough to fight in Sierra Leone, one of many world’s poorest international locations. A current report from the International Initiative Towards Transnational Organized Crime earlier this yr discovered that almost half of kush samples examined contained opioids as much as 25 occasions stronger than fentanyl. The drug’s content material have been largely unknown prior to now, hindering response efforts, specialists famous.
Kadiatu Koroma with the native Ladies for Ladies Basis nonprofit mentioned her group has seen an increase in drug use amongst girls and ladies lately.
“When they’re very drowsy … males will simply come and take benefit,” she mentioned. Left weak after utilizing the drug, the ladies “are impregnated they usually don’t even know the lads who did it.”
25 strains of the drug
At Sierra Leone’s Kissy Psychiatric Hospital, well being employees described encountering 25 completely different strains of the drug within the wider Freetown space.
In one in every of two feminine wards, nurse Kadiatu Dumbuya mentioned 90% of kush addicts she has attended to throughout her six years within the hospital have “offered their physique” to feed the behavior.
And but, among the many 50 folks — majority of whom are kush customers — who filed into one in every of Sierra Leone’s two government-run rehab facilities on a current day, solely three have been girls.
Solely 300 folks have accessed the seven-week program on the Hasting Army Heart because it opened in February 2024, guarded by the navy and surrounded by barbed wire. Simply 40 of the beneficiaries are girls.
Officers say this system is gender-sensitive, with women and men separated by a fence. Nonetheless, workers mentioned stigma and household stress imply girls typically deny their addictions and chorus from searching for help.
A drop within the ocean
“Normally, we’ve 10% of ladies that come to our consideration. That doesn’t imply the ladies aren’t addicts … they really feel shy of their communities,” mentioned Ansu Konneh, who works with the Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Social Welfare.
“It’s a drop within the ocean,” he says.
As a result of funding challenges, an ‘ambassador’ program for recovered addicts from the middle has stalled, and admissions have been halted for 5 months. When it resumed, among the mother and father on the two,000 person-long ready checklist mentioned their youngsters had died.
Amongst these determined for assist was Melda Lansana, who mentioned she visited the ministry a number of occasions to safe a rehab spot for her 18-year-old daughter, Khadija.
“Once I was taking it, I couldn’t wash, I couldn’t deal with myself,” Khadija mentioned, recalling the aid of the times spent within the middle final August.
With out cash for varsity, she struggles to get her life on observe. As a result of household tensions, she has chosen to dwell “on the streets” along with her boyfriend.
She vows she’s clear. Her mom suspects she’s nonetheless utilizing.
Funding challenges gradual progress
Progress towards kush is gradual, very like different elements of the world the place the battle towards artificial medicine is usually tough.
Officers acknowledge the federal government has struggled to supply livelihood or enterprise help to ease reintegration, significantly for beneficiaries with out formal schooling – a step advocates say would assist girls.
Final yr’s emergency declaration, lauded by civil society, has helped shift the strategy from punishment to care however the response is just “65% of what it needs to be,” mentioned Habib Kamara, director of the Social Linkages For Youth Growth And Baby Hyperlink, an area nonprofit concerned within the battle towards drug use.
The group is without doubt one of the few which have supplied focused help to feminine customers, particularly to weak populations like intercourse employees, via group peer help, free household planning and sweetness classes to assist construct confidence.
“We’ve got to satisfy the ladies the place they’re,” Kamara mentioned.
Marie Kamara, 19, rejected kush for one more drug – Tramadol, which specialists have warned can also be harmful. She noticed kush as too dangerous and was delay by her associates’ stench and oozing sores.
One evening, she mentioned, she and her pal Yabu have been chased by a kush supplier. Marie escaped. Yabu didn’t.
“They raped her … simply due to kush,” Marie mentioned.
Months later, Yabu died from the results of the drug, Marie mentioned — her second pal misplaced to kush.
“Let me not die like them,” Marie mentioned. “I pray.”
___
For extra on Africa and improvement: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse
The Related Press receives monetary help for world well being and improvement protection in Africa from the Gates Basis. The AP is solely chargeable for all content material. Discover AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a listing of supporters and funded protection areas at AP.org.
Source link