We would like to share the report by our member RENAF/Sud Kivu on their broadcast on September 27, 2023. The original article was written in French and can be accessed here. Below, is a translated version of the article.

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On Community Radio La Colombe in KARHONGO/NYANGEZI

Subject: YOUNG PEOPLE FACING DRUGS….. WE MUST ACT NOW

The province of South Kivu is a martyr province, long scarred by repeated wars, the ravages and abuses of active armed groups, the most remarkable consequences of which have been the tearing apart of families, the imbalances in the social order, the intensification of the street child phenomenon, the erasure or diminution of public authority, the rural exodus, the decline of industries and other manufacturing production units.

Children known as “street children”, security structure personnel, the unemployed, staff of bars, bistros, porters, dock workers and young people who are poorly informed about the dangers of drugs are the most exposed to the temptation of consumption of drugs as certain preliminary investigations have so clearly demonstrated.

The desire to escape the control of various unpleasant events, to escape from daily frustrations, and the temptation to want to live new experiences, have pushed more than one into the net of drugs and various addictions.

Cases of overdose deaths continue to increase both in the city of Bukavu and within the province of South Kivu. Cases of mob justice are often applied against drug users found in flagrante delicto, driven by the need to find money to obtain the daily dose.

Many young people who were formerly pupils, students, employees or civil servants gave up everything after their contact with drugs and currently find themselves in an unprecedented precarious situation.

Recommendations
The ASBL RENAISSANCE AFRICAINE, RENAF/Sud Kivu recommends:

1. Raise awareness among civil society actors on the regulation of the consumption of psychoactive substances, drugs, alcohol, tobacco and other toxic substances;
2. Present the integrated approach for the prevention and treatment of drug addiction in health zones, set up a working group on the integration of activities to combat drug addiction in the minimum packages of activities and the complementary packages of activities, and set up an integration platform at the international, national, provincial and local on the fight against the consumption of psychoactive substances, lay the foundations for the establishment of an office or agency against drugs, support the development of a national policy to fight against drug addiction
3. Consolidate all the themes which are integration, care, and consolidation of policies, to combat the problem of drug addiction. We want people to talk about drug addiction in the depths of the South Kivu province, that’s why we started
4. Raise awareness among the main actors who are at the national, provincial and local levels, through the integrated approach, we will go to health zones, health areas, and households. With the partners, we will carry out a major survey to map these different substances; in order to respond correctly, it is necessary to identify the different actors concerned;
5. Conduct advocacy to help institutions, governments and countries, and different actors around the world, fight the drug phenomenon. We talk about drugs in the context of consumption and illicit marketing, it is a long-term work that we have based on three pillars: prevention, treatment and rehabilitation or integration into society. To achieve this, we have launched and joined a synergy (Provincial Consortium), together we have an integrated approach, this will allow the province of South Kivu/DRC to fight against this phenomenon effectively and adequately; because we have noticed that the work is done in their own corner.

As a reminder, according to the latest studies carried out by the PNLCT, with the support of partners, 3% of Congolese children aged 10 to 19 were already poly-drug addicts and 11% with violent behaviour (joint survey with the WHO). HIV seroprevalence among drug addicts was 5.2% while the average in the city of Kinshasa was 3.5%.

26% of young people say they lose control in front of their partner after taking the drug; 55.1% recognize that alcohol and drugs excite them to sexual desire; 52.2% had not used preparations during their last casual sexual encounter; 47.1% have had risky sex in the last 3 months, 75.1% want to give up drug addiction; 48.3% of young people need medical care; 11.8% need psychological support, and 9.3% smoke tobacco in the workplace; according to a 2005 survey.