‘A tsunami of female drug addicts’: How women and children became the silent victims of Afghan drug crisis

Exclusive: A lack of international funding and Taliban cruelty toward female drug addicts and their children has prevented victims from seeking help reports Charlene Rodrigues, and Matiullah Shirzad in Kabul

Taliban fighters look for drug addicts hiding in garbage to detain and move them to a drug treatment camp in Kabul (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

In the eleventh grade, Nargis fell in love with a man five years older. But his love for methamphetamine and heroin exceeded his affection for her.

“If I loved him, he told me, I must use the drugs,” she told The Independent.

Over the years, her dependency on drugs grew while her mental and physical health steadily declined. One day in late 2019, she found herself in a dilemma – addicted and pregnant with his child. Her pregnancy outside wedlock was seen as a source of shame in a culture where this is frowned upon.