Examining human rights and mental health among women in drug abuse treatment centers in Afghanistan

Abstract

Denial of human rights, gender disparities, and living in a war zone can be associated with severe depression and poor social functioning, especially for female drug abusers. This study of Afghan women in drug abuse treatment (DAT) centers assesses (a) the extent to which these women have experienced human rights violations and mental health problems prior to entering the DAT centers, and (b) whether there are specific risk factors for human rights violations among this population. A total of 176 in-person interviews were conducted with female patients admitted to three drug abuse treatment centers in Afghanistan in 2010. Nearly all women (91%) reported limitations with social functioning. Further, 41% of the women indicated they had suicide ideation and 27% of the women had attempted suicide at least once 30 days prior to entering the DAT centers due to feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Half of the women (50%) experienced at least one human rights violation in the past year prior to entering the DAT centers. Risk factors for human rights violations among this population include marital status, ethnicity, literacy, employment status, entering treatment based on one’s own desire, limited social functioning, and suicide attempts. Conclusions stemming from the results are discussed.

Determinants of health among people who use illicit drugs in the conflict-affected countries of Afghanistan, Colombia and Myanmar: a systematic review of epidemiological evidence

“…The included studies were published from 2000 to 13th August 2021. Fourteen studies were conducted in Afghanistan [29,31,41,[43][44][45][46][53][54][55][56][57][58][59], one study was with Afghan refugees in Pakistan [62], nine were in Colombia [32-38, 60, 61], ten were in Myanmar [30,39,40,42,[47][48][49][50][51][52] and one was in China and Myanmar [63]. Thirty were cross-sectional in design, four were cohort studies and one case-control study.…”

“…One study stated that moving abroad was a result of conflict and between 36 and 42% reported initiating drugs while away [41,43,44,46,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59]. A study in Afghanistan reported that 5% of women in a drug treatment centre were forced to work in poppy cultivation, 19% were forced to use drugs and 13% had lost a close family member due to conflict in the last two years [29]. Between 32 and 77% of samples in Myanmar and Afghanistan were internal migrants [43,[47][48][49][50]63].…”

“…In Afghanistan one study focused on women only and two studies in Myanmar included both men and women. All these studies focused on non-injecting drug use [29,47,48]. There was little information reported on ethnic identities.…”

“My father told me ‘child, there is no son in this house, so you should wear these boy clothes’”: perspectives on gender norms, roles, and bacha posh among Afghan migrant women in Melbourne, Australia

“…Afghanistan has a long history of deep-rooted patriarchal values, which have created strict gender roles that, in much of the country, have changed little over time ( Abadi et al., 2012 ; Bahri, 2014 ). Afghanistan ranks poorly on a range of international measures of gender inequality, with women experiencing considerable disadvantage across a range of empowerment and participation indicators.…”

War Trauma, Psychological Distress, and Coping Among Afghan Civilians Seeking Primary Health Care

“…Afghanistan has experienced nearly 30 years of war, conflict, and instability resulting in an estimated 3.7 million displaced people, >100,000 human causalities since 2001, high rates of poverty, and infrastructural damages (Abadi et al, 2012; Crawford, 2015; Niland, 2015; Ventevogel, Azimi, Jalal, & Kortmann, 2002). Thus, much of the population of Afghanistan has likely experienced war-related traumatic events, with research suggesting that >40% of Afghans have experienced between 8 and 10 traumatic events during a 10-year span, and 14.1% have experienced 11 or more (Scholte et al, 2004).…”