Farida, Zewar, and Noorjan are the three women who have separated from their husbands because of their addiction.
He Had Forgotten His Laughter
Farida, 33, had separated from her husband because of his drug addiction.
After living together for one year, I found out about my husband’s addiction when we moved from the village to Mazar-e-Sharif city, the provincial capital of Balkh province. My daughter had just been born. At first, he used to smoke opium. Then, he turned to heroin. The more his addiction progressed, the more our poverty and hunger also became intense. Over time, he lost the ability to work and started selling household appliances. He had completely forgotten his laughter and his eyes were always either sleepy or red and rough. He could not bear anyone or any word. He would beat me up in order to force me to take money from my brothers for his drugs.
Life with him had become worse than my imagination about the “hell”. After a while, I decided to stand against his demands, but he appealed to violence and poured boiling water on me. One day, he attacked me with a knife. I screamed and my brothers, who lived near us, heard my screams and rescued me. My brothers paid a huge amount of money to divorce me so that I could get rid of my abusive and addicted husband. But the hardest part of ending that relationship was that all our effort to receive custody of my daughter was futile.
My daughter had just turned two. After the divorce, I heard that my mother-in-law was taking care of the daughter and my husband had gone to Iran. I tried several times to see my daughter, but it was in vain. My father-in-law’s family does not allow my daughter to show herself to me.
Encountering Eleven Terrified Children and an Angry Woman
Zewar, 30, is another young woman who broke up with her husband due to his addiction and polygamy.
I was living in Herat, in my brother’s house. There were a lot of jobs and income for women in Herat province. I was working in a factory. Therefore, I was not economically dependent on my brother and I didn’t have to fawn over my brother’s wife. Until my brother decided to marry me to a man I didn’t know at all.
We started a happy and tranquil life. My husband used to go out every day, saying he was going to work, and come home late at night. After eight months, at my husband’s insistence, we moved to the village.
At night, we arrived at a house where, according to my husband, his parents were living. There, we encountered eleven terrified boys and girls and an angry woman. The woman attacked me and punched me in the back. “This townswoman better not has been an addict like you who has clung to you,” she said while taking my (and her) husband by the collar. “Both of you have had a fun and happy time; Now, have you come to make life bitter for my children and me!?”
All my beautiful imaginations, dreams, and thoughts vanished into thin air in the blink of an eye. I was stunned and did not know what to say or what to do. With my poor dowry, I started living in an abandoned room apart from the woman and her children. My daughter was born, but the misbehaviors and enmity of my rival wife increased day by day.
My rival wife would not allow our husband to come to my room. I used to be afraid at night because I was alone. Therefore, he would send one of his girls or sons to me. Sometimes, he secretly came to my room to smoke opium for one hour or two and then would leave. When I asked him for food and clothes, he would say: “Your brother prints dollars (is rich) abroad. Call and tell him that you are sick so that he sends money; then I will buy your needs.”
After a year, I could no longer tolerate that situation. I told the truth to my older brother who lives abroad. “It is better to be divorced than to have a husband who does not care about your food, clothes, and health,” he said. “Break up with your husband and take your daughter’s custody too. I will pay no matter how much money they ask for.”
My husband was not satisfied with our divorce, but his first wife pressured him to divorce me. So, he had no choice but to agree. They took my daughter from me and did not give her to me no matter how much I begged. I was even ready to buy my daughter from them, but they refused to give her to me.
Finally, I got divorced and I have not seen my daughter for many years. I hear from my ex-husband’s neighbors that my daughter has grown. I have a good and more peaceful life. But when a mother lives separated from her child, even if she lives in her ideal peace and comfort, she doesn’t enjoy it.
De-Addiction Camp Did Not Work
Noorjan, 35, has the same fate as Farida and Zevar.
Our daughter was five years old and we had lived together for seven years. It was bandied about that my husband was addicted, but I didn’t believe it. My husband was working in a coal mine and would come home every two months for a few days. Now, we had also a son. We moved to the city and our life had reached an average level in every respect.
After a few years, my husband began to make excuses and misbehave. When he would return from the coal mine for a few days, he either didn’t stay at home all day and came home late at night or, if he stayed at home, he was asleep all the time.
But, after a while, I saw several times my husband using heroin and methamphetamine (crystal). I fought with him many times and asked him to go to a de-addiction camp to be hospitalized, but he refused. With the help of his friends, several times, we quarantined him at home for weeks, but he could not withdraw from using drugs.
It was winter. During one or two months, I called my husband hundreds of times, but he either would not answer or turn off his phone. Every day, the house owner would ask me for the six months’ rent that my husband had not paid. We also didn’t have household fuel, food, and other necessary facilities at home.
I called my husband’s employer and asked him about my husband. “We don’t about him for more than a month,” he told me, adding “He was using a lot of drugs and was no longer able to work. I dismissed him.”
I contacted my husband’s brothers and asked them to make him come to Kabul under any possible pretext. Finally, he came home, but nothing changed. My daughter, who would go to a private school, could no longer continue her studies; because we didn’t even have money to pay for her carfare. Out of necessity, I sold my golden earrings to pay the rent and buy household fuel and other materials.
I asked my husband once again to go to a de-addiction camp and quit using drugs for the sake of our children. “It’s been 35 years I am using drugs” he responded to me. “My addiction has progressed to an extent that when I smoke opium, it’s ineffective, like cigarette or naswar. Now, I’m using heroin and crystal. I know that I can’t quit it anymore.”
I had no choice but to break up, but my whole concern was my children and receiving their custody. At first, my husband did not agree to give me custody of our children, but after a while, he agreed, because he knew that he could not take care of them. My brothers-in-law, however, disagreed. “We are not that much poltroon to let our children go,” they said. “Nowhere in Islam is it said that a child can live with his/her mother after a divorce.” It was astonishing for me; The children that I had nurtured in my womb and raised with many problems, were now the others’ children.
My daughter was 12 years old and in the fifth grade. She could understand everything and often suffered from being teased by her classmates and playmates because of her father’s addiction. We gave our children the right to choose. “I want to live with my mother,” my daughter said before everyone. My son also chose to live with me. In this way, I received custody of my children and separated from my ex-husband. Then, I moved to my father’s house in the village.
My daughter and son have officially joined the school with the cooperation of the neighborhood school principal. Now we have a better and calmer life. Although our economic situation is not good, but we are happy that we are together. We are satisfied with our haves and have-nots, waiting for the better days to come.
