NEW: Kaduna Centre Where Women Who Use drugs Gets Help Free Of Charge

21-year-old Folashade Akande (not her real name) told Saturday Sun that, she started using drugs when she was about 17 years after attending a birthday party somewhere in Kaduna. She said, she started with just alcohol but kept making progress and later added smoking and Rohypnol and all that so she could always be on ‘high’ side of life.

“I started drug use a few years ago. But, I have gone far in that. I take alcohol, I smoke cigarate and do Rohypnol to get high daily. But the day I heard what alcohol could do to my body inside even though I feel high outside, I started struggling to put a stop to it. Sometimes, some of us are ignorant of the consequences of using drugs without prescription. Let me tell you more, the day some people from one centre called Milestone told me that smoking causes cancer of the lung, I became worried even though it was difficult for me to put a stop to it because it is already in me.

“My sister and I live with our father. We learnt the act as we attend birthday parties. Before, we used to hide it from our father but at a point, he discovered what we were doing in secrete and became so disappointed and embittered. He has tried to stop us but that was not helping until when we know the aftermath effects of using drugs illicitly.

“Like I said, I started using drug when I was about 18 years after attending a friend’s birthday party. It was like, you found yourself in the midst of your age mates and only you is trying to be different. Then, you keep hearing words like, this one is dull, ‘mumu’, mummy’s pet and all that and before you knew it, you have join them. That was my experience and now, I really want to stop all that and turn a new lifestyle that my people will appreciate. I just pray God help me,” she said.

Tochi Okafor (not her real name) is 23-year-old woman. She is a sickle cell patient who is well versed in injectable. She said, she inject herself a lot with hydroxyurea to reduce the frequency of painful crises and to reduce hospitalisation as a sickle cell patient.

“I inject myself a lot. In fact, I go around with syringe 24/7. My dad is late and as a sickle cell lady, I use drug like, half of syringe whenever I’m in sickle cell crisis. But when I discovered the drug was making me feeling high, I started abusing it. Before I knew it, I was taken four full syringe in the morning, another four in the afternoon and then the last four at night.

“But after my encounter with Milestones Foundation, I have reduced it very well. I’m telling the whole truth since you promised to protect my identity. I have reduced it to just half a syringe. Each syringe cost three hundred naira. That is N3, 600 per day. My father is late and my mother do not have much resources to manage my case. So, I have to be going to club and work in order to get the money for the drug. With change of attitude towards drugs, I can now save more and reduce the stress associated with how to raise money to buy the drug,” she added.

To 28-year-old Hassana Ibrahim (not her real name), her journey into drug use started when she was ten years old as a result of her misplaced curiosity. She do codeine and Rohypnol.

“I started using drug when I was just ten years old as a result of my curiosity to know how certain things work. Unluckily for me, it got out of hand. Now, I have two houses; my parents’ house and the one I got for myself to avoid disruptions. I have started reducing my drugs use but not up to 100 percent yet. I believe I can come out of it completely is just a matter of time.

“At the centre, we have 90 minutes twice a week in group counselling and discussions. Also, we have one hour for individual’s counselling in a week. The centre is great. You come or they come to you, talk with you like having fun but you are getting the message and taking action almost immediately. This is what I have not seen anywhere here in northern Nigeria. They reach out to people like us to affect their lives positively. I think we need more centres like this where women can confidently approach for help,” she stressed.

Programme Director, Milestones Rehabilitation Foundation and Project Manager, Milestone Community Health and Support Centre for women, Joseph Ike described the rehabilitation centre as a drop-in centre which means, it provide basic health and psycho-social services. Psycho-social services are services like counselling, peer group discussion, family counselling session and provision of some degree of mental health and social services – things that will help target population which is women that use drugs.

According to Ike, the recent United Nations Office of Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) report which he claimed to be the first of its kind in Nigeria, showed that, one out of every four drug users in Nigeria is a woman. That means drug use among women is common. Unfortunately, women are a hidden population, that is, women who use drug will not do that in the open.

“In most cases, when you go to a joint, you can only see guys trying to get high and not necessarily women. Women will rather go to a secluded places where they will not be seen due to stigma associated with women who use drugs. In this part of the country, all the conditions that predispose a woman to use drugs are present.

“We know for example that, women are more likely to use drugs in response to emotional issue that they are having particularly when they have no other means of resolving those issues. We know that marital stress also plays its role here. The fear of divorce, like, when you have children to take care of, when you have no shelter as a mother, can definitely push women to use drugs.

“In terms of attachment and placement in the society, that is consideration for some women for using drugs. We have heard a lot recently about education and empowerment of girl-child. All these issues are important because if they are absent, women, technically will cope. So, the idea of this centre, which is funded by grant from UNODC is to provide a place where at least, women can begin to address some of these issues that make them to use drug free of charge. It is the only one in this part of the country where services are provided for women alone.

“Now, when we were setting up the centre, the plan was to render services to 200 women in one year. We are now in our fifth month, and we have already seen over three hundred women and provided services for them free. We also go out to communities to provide services to women who cannot come here. Women in ‘ba Shiga’ homes, women in brothels and those in other social circumstances that are not allowed to come here, but, that does not mean they don’t have access to drugs.

From medical perspective, Dr Adejoke Adenle said, “in the process of counselling women who use drugs and discover that they have health issue, we refer them to other counsellors. Some of the health issues are sexually transmitted diseases and also birth control like family planning, HIV and hepatitis screenings and vaccination. When these issues are beyond the services we provide here, we refer them to our partners in primary health centres.

“More work need to be done especially in terms of referrer. We need more partners in other tertiary centres that we can refer some cases that cannot be handled at primary health centre that is, if we can get centres that are women focus. But, when we refer them to regular hospitals, some of them will not go because of the stigma they may like face even from the health workers in some of these centres. Take for example, a girl who is not married going for family planning in this part of the country may be considered to be promiscuous.”

A drug use counsellor, Ruth Ebiti gave an insight into what led some women into drug use and find it difficult to retreat on their own except they get help.

To her, “some of them don’t really live here in Kaduna. They come from other places to see if they can make some money. But unfortunately for some of these girls when they make such moves, they fell into the hands of those that will use them as sex workers. And for some of them to be able to cope with the work they do, they definitely need drugs.

“Then, you see some of them who really want to quit using drugs if they can get help. Now, for some of them especially those that are living in brothels where the owners send them out as sex workers, if they quit the trade they are into, the thinking is where will they go to and what will they do to earn a living. What we tell them is to letting them know that they can actually live without taking drugs and we are happy that we have save so many of them through skill acquisition.”