Addicts targeted own houses for money: Research

Women from 143 out of 200 households surveyed in 10 villages of Sirsa and Fatehabad — districts with the highest number of drug addicts — in Haryana have revealed that their spouses or sons resorted to theft of household items, livestock, ‘gullaks’ of religious places, utensils and even children’s toys, to arrange money for drugs, as per a Panjab University researcher.

According to the researcher, the use of medicinal drugs, including banned tablets, injections and heroin, is rampant in the two districts that have the highest number of drug addicts in Haryana, according to Department of Social Justice and Empowerment Report 2020-2021. “The families we talked to claimed that their addicted sons or spouses would sell anything to buy drugs. An elderly woman in a Sirsa village said her 30-year-old son sold small wooden logs lying around the house to buy strips of banned tablets to which he got addicted in rehab itself,” said researcher Manjulla Verma, a post-doctorate fellow under the Indian Council of Social Science Research in Panjab University’s Centre for Human Rights and Duties. Her research was supervised by Prof Namita Gupta.

Women at risk of HIV infection

A detailed interaction the PU researcher had with families of addicts revealed that many addicts while doing drugs would take out their blood in a syringe, mix tablets in it and inject it back in the body. They would then pass the syringe to the next person, increasing the chances of transmission of HIV among themselves and their spouses as well.

According to the research findings, 20 per cent of women experienced physical and verbal abuse from their addicted sons or spouses. Though most women were hesitant in sharing their misery, 10 per cent of them admitted to having faced sexual abuse from their partners due to their addiction.

“A young woman residing with her husband shared with me that he would lock her up in a room the whole day when he is out and would abuse her at night. She could not even access washroom, as in villages, houses generally have washrooms away from the living area,” the researcher added.

While stress and depression is common among such women, 30 per cent of them claimed to have faced problems in pregnancy, including issues in development of foetus, and even suffered miscarriage.

Tale of woes

The families we talked to claimed that their addicted sons or spouses would sell anything to buy drugs. — Manjulla Verma, post-doctorate fellow

Many women were still found to be staying with their addicted partners, despite suffering domestic violence, because of the societal and parental pressure. Only 5 per cent women who were educated got support from family and took to legal recourse for separation.

Manjulla’s superviser Prof Namita Gupta while applauding her research said, “The situation on ground is really dark. However, the issue cannot be redressed only by the state agencies only. There is a need for active participation of all stakeholders, including educational institutions, non-governmental organisations and media, to save our youth from the substance abuse.”