350 rehabilitated addicts being trained

 KABUL): Hundreds of rehabilitated drug addicts are undergoing a nine-month vocational training course in two provinces, officials said on Wednesday.

The Word Bank-funded project to be implemented in Kabul and Paktia provinces would cost 17 million afghanis, said Amana Afzali, the minister of labour, social affairs, martyrs and disabled.

She added 350 cured drug addicts, 200 of them in Kabul, would benefit from the project aimed at improving their economy and keeping them busy in positive activities.

The participants would learn carpet-weaving, tailoring, embroidery and fixing mobile phones, cycles and motorbikes, the minister explained.

Deputy Public Health Minister Najia Tariq said such programmes had been useful in overcoming employment and helping drug addicts in freeing themselves from the habit.

Deputy Counternarcotics Minister Haroon Rashid said cured addicts could return to their habit of drug if not indulged in productive activities. He said his ministry, in cooperation with public health officials, was trying to increase treatment of drug addicts to 40 percent over the next four years.

mm/ma/mud