28% of Egyptian drug abusers are female: Minister

CAIRO - 6 May 2017: Twenty-eight percent of drug addicts in Egypt are female, and some families do not seek therapy fearing scandal, Minister of Social Solidarity, Ghada Wali, told the programme El Hayat El Youm via telephone on Friday.

However, an addiction treatment and rehabilitation unit has been established at one of the armed forces hospitals to discreetly provide treatment to girls, Solidarity Minister, Dr. Ghada Waly said Friday.

“Bedaya Gedida” (Arabic for a fresh start) is a program which aids addicts to start anew. Addicts get regular check-ups for a year, post recovery, to ensure abstinence in order to receive loans to start their own projects, according to Waly.

In the first half of 2015, more than 19,000 people called an addiction hotline for assistance in dealing with a dependency on controlled substances, Waly previously stated.

She noted a slight increase in the percentage of women seeking help; 3.7 percent of those calling the hotline in the first six months of 2015 were women, compared to less than two percent in 2014.

In October 2016, the Ministry of Solidarity and Education coordinated to launch an awareness-raising campaign to students at schools about the perils of drugs abuse.