PESHAWAR, Aug 27: The number of women drug addicts in the NWFP is on the rise as some of them are being used as drug pushers who ultimately become drug addicts themselves.

According to a survey conducted by Dawn, most women aged between 20 and 40, majority of them married, use drugs like heroin, charas, hashish, and Morphine; majority are married.

Families, whose men are involved in drug trafficking or drug manufacturing, their women, specially the young ones, take to drugs.

A family of Takht Bai is a case in point. Every member of this family had become a heroin addict. But only the men received treatment and recovered; the women were not, as it is a great taboo for women to be addicted in our culture.

In the past four years only 15 women were treated and rehabilitated by the Dost Foundation, a non-governmental organization for addiction.

“As our society is conservative, its not ready to accept the fact that women too have started taking drug and are in need of treatment,” a Dost Foundation worker Arif Anwar said.

Most women who take to drugs do so because of poverty and grief.

Palwasha, who belonged to a poor family, got married to a heroin addict. She used to smuggle cloth from Peshawar to Pindi. After having suffered a financial loss she went into depression and tried to find solace in heroin provided by her husband.

Palwasha’s young daughter, Gul, also became an addict as she used sit on her lap at the time of consuming the drugs. Both were treated by an NGO.