Burundi: drug addiction does not spare women

Drug addicts in Burundi joined the rest of the world to celebrate the day dedicated to the fight against drug abuse and trafficking. In Burundi, women are not spared. The United Nations established the day 37 years ago. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The event was celebrated under the theme: “no to stigma and discrimination” with the slogan of 2024: “support, don’t punish!”

Established in December 1987 by the UN, the day essentially aims to raise awareness each year in all communities about the risks linked to drug consumption as well as its harmful consequences on health. To celebrate this day in Bujumbura in the commercial city of Burundi, drug addicts took a march, starting from the roundabout leading to the airport towards the social reintegration center for drug users located in Maramvya in Mutimbuzi commune, Bujumbura province.

These groups include women and girls.

Mariane (not her real name), 28 years old, says she started taking drugs at 12.

She explains that drug users are rejected by society, including their loved ones.

“left to her own and without obvious social support, she had not been encouraged to resist drugs,” she disclosed.

She adds that lacking her daily amount can push her to “steal anything that can be resold, without thinking about the consequences like prison, once caught!”

However, she says, the product to which she is addicted is “boost”, a mixture of heroin and other substances, the “ball” of which can be bought for 25,000 Burundian francs.

As she has to take 4 every day, she says she has to find 100,000 francs every day.

“This led me to fall into prostitution,” says the young woman, who now has HIV.

Her unfortunate friend Bwitizo, who also did not want to give her name, holds that when she cannot find her “boost” at a specific time of the day, she feels unbearable pain, such as pain of labour.

Some drug addicts who talked to SOS Médias Burundi consider the “boost” to be very expensive.

“We prefer to inject sapor or a mixture of this product with morphine and another substance,” they reveal.

Patrice Niyonzima, director of the Maramvya center, asks the families of users of toxic substances to “support them by considering them as sick people rather than punishing or rejecting them.”