Afghanistan is one of the countries known for its political violence and wars but one of its major burdens today may be under the radar. It was currently reported that the production of drugs like hashish and opiates are increasing in the country, affecting not only its locals but millions of individuals around the world as well.

For the last five years, the number of drug users in the country has dramatically increased, from a figure of 920,000 to a whopping 1. 5 million users. These findings are reported by the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime also reported that Afghanistan is currently producing more hashish, heroin and opium than any other country in the world.

Tariq Suliman works at a drug rehab center and he says that if each Afghan addict spends a dollar a day on his drug habit, this could equal to an amount of $45 million being spent on drugs each month. He also describes the patients who seek help from his center—patients of various ages, professions and economic backgrounds. He says that most of them are able males who could have helped their families get out of poverty. HIV is another serious issue that comes with the spread of drug addiction in Afghanistan.

Inside one of the nightclubs in Mombasa, a local man named Tito (not his real name) is sharing kisses with his German lover, Leonard Smithberger. Even though they are making out in a dark corner in the bar, the bouncer spots them and asks them to leave. The couple does so and heads for another place where they continue to enjoy their partying.

Tito is only one of the male sex workers who populate the streets of Kenya. Several times a year, Smithbeger visits Kenya to spend time and money on Tito, even buying him plenty of gifts. During the times of his lover’s visits, Tito temporarily leaves his family to stay in a hotel with the German.

The situation of Tito is not at all unique. It is reported that more than half of the Mombasa’s male sex workers also have wives, girlfriends or other sexual partners who are female. At the same time, tourists like Smithberger who have sex with male sex workers also sometimes have sexual interactions with female sex workers.

These intertwining sexual relations, according to experts, are a breeding ground for sexually transmitted diseases since much of the sexual intercourse are also unprotected. The Kenyan government is hoping to target male sex workers to raise awareness about the risks of unprotected sex.

A farming kit was recently introduced in Kenya in order to help local farmers increase their profits and farming know-how in an eco-friendly manner.

The backpack kits will weigh about 15 to 42 kilograms and will contain the basic farming tools that will help farmers turn their crops into harvest. Aside from tools, the lightweight kits will also carry manuals and some will even feature water tanks that are made with a collapsible design. The kits are now being used in farm areas in Mau Forest.

Smaller farms are very abundant in Kenya where a large part of the population depends on the fishing industry and agriculture for their livelihood.

The farming kits may offer a solution to Kenya’s frequent insufficient food supply. According to a recent report by the US Agency for International Development, the frequent food insecurity in Kenya is caused by a number of factors such as lack of rain, outbreaks of disease, continually soaring food prices and more.

This is why Rachel Zedeck formed the Backpack Farm Agricultural Programme in order to encourage small-land farmers to work together in order to increase their production.

Zedeck says that the goal of the program is to help farmers produce their own food and improve their way of life in the long run.

In Damascus, Syria, April 21 will see the beginning of a new ban in public places. Experts are believing that these anti-smoking efforts will not only help enhance the health of citizens but will also lessen the costs associated with public health service.
Some of the public places where smoking will be banned are restaurants and airports. Those who will be caught breaking the law will be faced with a fine equivalent to 45 US dollars.
Based on a survey conducted by the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies, almost 60 percent of adult males in Syria are smokers while more than 20 percent of females light up on a regular basis. These results led the center to believe that smoking should be considered an epidemic in the nation. No wonder why lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the country.

Aside from cigarettes, the use of another smoking apparatus called the “water pipe” is also gaining popularity among young people. Experts are believing that this pipe can cause tuberculosis and must also be controlled by the law.

To help promote its anti-smoking campaign, the SCTS is persuading the government to double the price of cigarettes, in an attempt to make them less accessible to ordinary citizens. One major problem that the center sees is the fact that the government makes a lot of money from its tobacco industry, which could be the reason why the government may be hesitant about completely seizing the sales.

Sierra Leone is currently undergoing social developments in order to decrease its poverty. According to researchers, the disabled citizens of the country must also be part of these developments.
This statement is the conclusion of the study that was carried out by the Leonard Cheshire Disability, a non-government agency in the UK.
According to Bentry Kalanga who is one of the authors of the study, the voices of the disabled are voices that are not often heard in talks of development but the time has come to shed more light on this issue.
The study also took a look at some socioeconomic domains such as housing and economic wealth. According to the results, the economic difference between disabled and non-disabled individuals is very small.
The country of Sierra Leone experienced civil war about eight years ago. The many cases of amputation resulted in disability having its share of the limelight, but there is still a lot of work to be done especially when the country remains to be one of the most impoverished nations in the world.
The study also showed that people who are disabled have less chances of going to school, finding jobs and receiving medical care. In a country where access to education, employment and health care is already low, these findings are indeed very devastating.

Few people can go through what Pastor Morie S. Ngobeh did and still continue with his humanitarian work. Now over 70 years old, Pastor Morie has been exposed to all kinds of abuse from the drug addicts living in Freetown—from harsh words and spitting to violent acts such as stabbing.

Despite these trials, he believes that it is his calling to continue to provide counseling to these drug abusers. He talks about how his mission began when he was younger and attending Bible college. Once, on his way to class, he saw a group of young boys smoking marijuana in the streets. When he approached them, they tried to drive them away thinking he was a policeman. When he insisted that he was not police, the boys asked him to buy them bread which Pastor Morie did. When he realized that many of the children were homeless and living in the streets, he began to visit them regularly and even invited them to his home. He also worked on reconciling some of the kids with their parents. In time, more and more drug-dependent children started visiting his home, not primarily to ask for his counseling but to seek for food.

Pastor Morie also recalls a 2003 incident when he was helping one woman get over her addiction. The treatment became so violent that at one point, the woman stabbed his leg with a knife. The scar remains but Pastor Morie happily reports that the woman is now living a clean life and hugs him each time they see each other, even calling the pastor her father.

Pastor continues to spread his message of love to the drug dependent youth of Freetown.

Nasreena Bibi is a 12-year-old girl who lives in Pakistan and is one of the many children who join the lines of people waiting to receive food everyday. According to Nasreena, the girls in their family along with their mothers are the last to eat while their fathers, brothers and other male relatives are the first ones to receive the food rations. In most cases, there is only a very small amount of leftovers waiting for Nasreena and the other females, but it is something that she has gotten used to. Even when Nasreena helps her aunts and mother in preparing food in the house, the women who prepare the meal often get very little to eat.

According to Aisha Bibi who works as a female health humanitarian, this unfair rationing of food in the household is very common among most families in Pakistan. Aisha hopes to educate the public about the health risks that women are facing, especially if they are expecting or planning to be a mother someday.

According to a recent survey, 12% of children in displaced families are facing malnutrition and more than half of them are little girls. Fortunately, UNICEF is working to do something about the situation. Last year, the humanitarian agency has managed to bring down the rate of malnutrition through a variety of methods that included equal food distributions, providing safe water supply, nutritional interventions as well as improving the sanitization of the affected communities. UNICEF, along with other NGOs, seeks to focus on the nutrition of children under five years of age as well as women who are either pregnant or breastfeeding.

Humanitarians in poverty-stricken Afghanistan have reported several family factors that could actually lead to poverty. According the Rahman Ghafoory who is the director of country’s Central Statistics Office, families that are high in number have higher chances not only of being poor but also of being illiterate and malnourished.
Ghafoory’s conclusion is based on the National Risks and Vulnerability Assessment which was conducted in 2008 and showed a clear connection between poverty and the size of the family. However, the composition of the family also has something to do with how well the household will fare economically. For instance, a large family that is mostly composed of individuals who are in good health and at the legal age to work (especially men) then chances are the family will be able to survive economically rough times. However, if most of the members are elders and children, and only a few of the members are fit to be employed, then the family faces risk even more.
According to the NRVA statistics, more than 70,000 families in Afghanistan are headed by women and most of these women are widows. According to Ghafoory, these households that are headed by females are able to thrive less than those that are headed by men. This is because women in the country usually have very limited employment options. Aside from financial concerns, families that lack a male head are also at the short end because they also lack social security.

In Lahore, Pakistan, there is a saying that states how women are safest when they are under their shawls and within their homes. But even though this saying holds true for many, for some like Naseeba Bibi, it is the exact opposite of their experiences.
The 25-year-old woman relates how she married her husband six years ago in Punjab Province and how she has suffered abuse since that fateful day. The man that Naseeba married is not only unemployed but is also a drug addict. He beats her everyday until she has scars on her back and sometimes even uses a stick to strike her. As if this maltreatment was not enough, Naseeba also claims that her husband has recently been spreading the word that she is having an affair with another man and that he (her husband) plans to kill her for honor. Naseeba says that the rumor is not true and that her husband is merely trying to get rid of her in order to marry another woman.
Fearing for her life, Naseeba escaped her home with her three children and went to live in Lahore instead. With her children, she stays in a room with no water and no electricity, and sells toys on the sidewalk everyday to keep her family from starving. She describes how difficult her life is in Lahore but that it’s better than being back in her home where she may not be alive at all.
Unfortunately, in a country where more than 600 women were victims of honor killings last year alone, Naseeba’s tale is a common story. Honor killing has been an age-old custom wherein the men in the family are given the right to kill their female relatives if she has brought dishonor to him or to the family. In most cases, however, the killings had nothing to do with honor.

If you live in a city where the cab drivers are not exactly known for their friendliness and hospitality then you should at least be thankful that you don’t live in Manzini in Swaziland. Here, the cab drivers are known for their outright rudeness, violence and reckless driving. Needless to say, the city’s drivers have quite a bad reputation. And now, it seems that health humanitarians in the region are also having a hard time reaching them for HIV and AIDS services.
Wesley Dlamini is a taxi driver who owns his own cab. He says that he doesn’t have time to get tested because he is working all day. If he doesn’t work, he doesn’t earn. By the end of his shift at night, the clinics in the region are already closed. Other employees of public transportation companies have the same issues. Amos Simelane is a conductor and he relates how employees like him have quotas to meet everyday. Once these quotas are not met, the employee is terminated from the job. Meeting quotas become even harder especially since public vehicles are always competing for passengers. To be able to keep up, drivers and conductors alike practically live inside their vehicles.
Because of the time constraints, a non-government agency called Population Services International or PSI has started a program that will be targeting these public transportation employees. Instead of inviting drivers and conductors for counseling and testing in clinics, the services will be brought to their workplace.
According to Bongiwe Zwane from PSI, this is a good way of extending their health services to people who work every day and have no time to visit health clinics.