Opium pacifies Afghan refugee children

By Rifatullah Orakzai
BBC correspondent in Peshawar

Children growing up in refugee camps in Peshawar, in the north of Pakistan, are being drugged by their parents to leave themselves free to work undisturbed in the carpet factories.

The Afghan men and women, eager to not lose out on the sole source of income in the camps, dip their fingers in a pot of opium to feed their children before a day's work.

Children are given opium to stop them going out begging

"I know this is very dangerous and can have bad effects on the health of our children, but how can we abandon carpet weaving as this is our only source of income?" said Mallaley, one of the women carpet weavers.

She said that her husband left for Afghanistan a week before to repair their home destroyed by decades long war and fighting.

"We are not happy in Pakistan and want to shift to our homeland," she said.

"In absence of my husband we have no other option to work in a carpet unit for survival and to feed our family and children," she said.

"Opium eating keep us impetus to work more and avoid getting bored."

Parent users

The refugee camps in Peshawar were mostly set up for hundreds of fleeing Afghan families in the 1980s after the former USSR invaded Afghanistan.

Afghan refugee Altaf Khan, who has been living in the camp since 1983, says the use of opium is reluctant but it stops the children going out and begging on the streets.

When you eat opium, you don't become tired, and you can work late into the night Meer Muhammad, Afghan refugee

He said 90% of the 1,800 refugees in Khurasan refugee camp work in carpet knitting.

"Most of them are men and women who either work on lease or have established their own small units inside their houses," he said.

Carpet weaving is slow and time-consuming work.

An average carpet is prepared in a month or longer, even with two or three weavers working a rotation of eight hour shifts.

The men and women are paid between $30 and $40 for knitting one metre of carpet. It is hard for someone to weave that length in a week even working every day from early morning till evening without any break.

"Both women and men are involved in taking drug during working hours as it increases ability to work more," said Abdul Rub, an ethnic Pashtoon who is also Commandant of the camp.

Treatment

He said that 60% of the Turkmen who are connected with weaving business in the camp have been addicted to opium and it is not considered harmful as father and son eat it together.

"The addicts used to bring opium from Afghanistan where it is easily available, but it can be obtained from Pakistani cities as opium poppies are still produced in tribal territories bordering with Afghanistan," Mr Rub added.

There is little intervention from the authorities to stop the cycle of opium addiction in the camps.

Opium also helps workers keep going on long shifts

But some weavers are showing signs of concern.

Afghan refugee Meer Muhammad, 35, who runs a small carpet-weaving unit, said: "We are anxious about the future of our young people, but why would we opt for opium eating if there was peace in our own country?"

However, Mr Muhammad admitted he was already addicted to opium when he migrated to Pakistan along with his family in 1980.

"When you eat opium, you don't become tired, and you can work late into the night," he said.

There are few non-governmental organisations (NGO) or other welfare institutions working to help rehabilitate addicts in the Khurasan camp or in other parts of Peshawar.

Afghan doctor Tariq Suleman runs the Nijat Centre for the treatment of opium-affected patients which is 10 kilometres from the camp.

"We are trying our utmost to work for rehabilitation of addicted Afghans but the menace cannot be eradicated completely unless there is a planned program for controlling opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.