Drug abuse leads to rising divorce rates, ruining hundreds of families in Karachi’s coastal villages
KARACHI: Maryam Amir’s world fell apart when her drug-addicted 22-year-old son threatened to divorce his wife, bringing back painful memories of two decades ago when her husband abandoned her for his own drug use.
Amir has endured hardship alone for years to raise her two sons, and now history seems to be repeating itself. Though the characters are different, the root cause of her suffering is the same: the flood of drugs into Karachi’s coastal village.
Lehri Goth, a coastal village of about 70,000 people mostly Sindhi fishermen whose history dates back to the 13th century, has become a hub for drug traffickers in recent decades, with hundreds of addicts lining its seedy streets.
“He says, ‘I’m divorcing my wife too,'” Amir, 40, sighed, turning off the sewing machine that had long been his only source of income. “No one can finish drugs.” [in this village]. [The lives of] Our sons are being ruined because of this.”
There was sadness in her voice as she recalled the moment her husband abandoned her.
“These men have ruined all these women’s lives,” she added. “They’re not going to quit this addiction.”
The rising divorce rate in Lehri Goth worried Nawaz Ali, a social worker married to a divorced drug addict, so he carried out a manual survey in all eight wards of the village and made some shocking discoveries.
“I made a list of 850 names. [divorced] “Women should [in this neighborhood] There are no divorced women.”
In one recent incident, a 14-year-old girl committed suicide after her parents forced her to marry a boy who was addicted to drugs, Ali said.
Arab News interviewed around 20 women from coastal towns who had divorced their drug-addicted husbands.
“My husband abandoned me. He was also a drug addict,” said Shahida, 29, who goes by a single name.
Her husband divorced her last week, leaving her young daughter on his lap, and her elderly father, who makes a living by catching crabs and other seafood, is now covering her living expenses.
“It’s very difficult to manage children’s expenses,” she said.
When Arab News interviewed the women last Sunday, they witnessed drug dealing taking place openly on the streets of Lehri Goth, but none of the addicts agreed to talk about the drug distribution network in the area.
“This whole area is flooded with drugs. Wherever you sit, it’s a drug den,” said police officer Mustaq Ahmed, who manages a drug rehabilitation centre run by Sindh Police in Lehri Goth. “Look around and you will see drugs being sold everywhere.”
Ahmed said that despite frequent police actions, they have been unable to dismantle the network of drug traffickers, most of whom disappear on the narrow streets right under the police’s noses.
Superintendent of Police Kashif Aftab Ahmad Abbasi said the police have a “zero tolerance” approach towards drug traffickers in Karachi’s Malir area, where Lehri Goth is located, and cited various drug busts, including one in June that saw the seizure of 704 grams of ice, 3.41 kilograms of heroin, 52.189 kilograms of charas and 51 bottles of wine and the filing of a case against the perpetrators.
Despite this, drug dealers continue to occupy the streets, disproportionately affecting local communities, especially women.
“We are not producing it locally, someone is supplying it from outside,” said Hurmat Muhammad Rafiq, a social worker in his 40s who launched a campaign against the drug menace after his son became addicted. “Someone is supplying it, so… [drug addiction] It’s growing.”
Rafiq said that in addition to drugs, early marriage was also contributing to the high divorce rate in the region.
“Don’t marry your children young. Let them grow up first and then arrange their marriage,” she urged after discussing her campaign plans with women from her neighborhood. “If you marry now, [at an early age]They will be divorced within five or six months.”
According to Rafiq, drug addicts never paid any attention to their wives.
“The husband comes home after smoking a cigarette and while exhaling, he asks his wife if she has anything to eat. [She] “When she said no, he kicked her and said, ‘I’m getting a divorce,'” she recalled.
“What is to be done with that poor woman now?”
