Afghanistan's Child Drug Addicts

Following on from the lecture we had from Sophie Chalk and One World Media, I made an attempt to look at some more examples of documentaries concerned with developing countries. One series of documentaries available on 4OD is Unreported World. From 2010 I watched the episode entitled, Afghanistan's Child Drug Addicts, as I had recently watched a similar doc concerning the abuse of children in the war torn country.

As you can probably guess from the title, the content was pretty heavy indeed, with reporter Ramita Naval exploring the effects of heroin and opium on youths and children throughout the country, from Kabul to the rural opium rich areas of the North.

Drugs in Afghanistan appears to be a massive problem and kudos to Naval and director Matt Haan for the access and harrowing examples they captured. Images of young boys under a bridge in the capital smoking Heroin discussing how they are forced to sell themselves to men for money are truly shocking accounts. So too are the toddlers in rural areas who are given opium by their parents because it is cheaper than food and prevents hunger.

Sadly, I feel the problem is much bigger and requires much more insight than a half hour documentary. Naturally, visions of war and the death of family members are a main catalyst for such young people finding an escape in drugs such as these. In such a poor and troubled country the effects of war will have so many deeper and damaging effects for so many generations. Full credit to the makers of this film, but I cannot help but think that so much more is needed to inform people of the problems that exist in Afghanistan.