POLOKWANE – “Drug addiction is not only common among men, but women too become drug addicts. We need to get rid of this stigma that a girl cannot get addicted to drugs. Drug dealers don’t care if you are male or female, as long as you have the money, you will get the drugs.”
These are the words of a Seshego-based mother, who first realised that her 23-year-old daughter was under the influence of drugs two years ago. Because of the stigma surrounding drugs and women, it was not easy to believe despite all the signs being there.
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She says her daughter was a curious child and would pick up cigarette butts and attempt to smoke it as a child. This grew to stealing a can of beer at family functions and lying about whether she had seen her father’s missing ‘zamalek’.
“At first we downplayed it. We thought that she’s just a child and that she would outgrow it. Boys are always taught about substance abuse but the girls are shielded from that reality. We thought we were doing her a favour by not saying anything but the truth is we made it okay for her to pick up the cigarette butts.”
She says her daughter arrived at home announced in 2019 during her second year of university.
It was the middle of the first semester and she refused to speak or explain why she was home.
“When I called the university I found out she had been expelled from the institution for five years because she failed to meet the minimum requirements. She had not attended any of her classes or written most of her exams. The few that she did write, she failed. She still did not explain how that happened and we just let it go. It was only later that month when I did the laundry that I noticed a foul smell on her clothes. A smell I later found out was dagga.”
She says for the months that followed money and small items around the house would go missing – a R10 note, the TV remote and even the iron went missing and because of that stigma surrounding girls and drug abuse she never thought her daughter could be an addict. It was only early this year when she came back early from work that she found her daughter at the gate with a bag full of groceries, that it finally hit her.
She says over the past two months she has seen a different side of her daughter, who now smokes openly.
“She steals from me and threatens to kill me when I don’t give her what she wants. Someone advised opening a case against her but in which world is it easy to see your child go to jail. There aren’t enough facilities or information on where we can get assistance. As a single mother, I can’t afford to take my child to private rehab and when you ask about rehab at public institutions they just tell you about jail. I want a future for my child, I want her to kick the habit and still be able to go back to university and get a job.”
The chairperson of the Seshego Community Against Drugs and Gangsterism Vincent Kunutu, says they have picked up that an alarming number of women are addicted to drugs in the area but because of the stigma around it most families are afraid of speaking up. “We do get complaints here and there but most of the people are willing to come forward. In my opinion there are more girls and women who are addicted than men, as they get hold of drugs more easily than men.
“In most cases these girls get addicted and end up having sex with the drug dealers in exchange for the drugs.”
Hezekiel Boloka, provincial director at Sanca says the Seshego Treatment Centre is a government inpatient centre and that Sanca Limpopo serves as an outpatient treatment centre. He says they also refer to Mpumalanga if there is no space at Seshego.
Boloka has advised patients to visit Sanca to be referred to government inpatient centres and they will process the application for inpatients if the assessment results are saying you need inpatient admission.
