No more money for our needles

By Sari Damar Ratri - Inside Indonesia

The first time I met Veni she was carrying boxes of clean needles from the Centre for Health Research at the University of Indonesia. She is an outreach worker whose life has been entangled with the physical and social harms of drug use. Her first husband was a drug user who sometimes earned money from drug dealing. While he struggled with his addiction, Veni was left to find ways to provide for her family. After 15 years Veni finally ended the marriage as she felt she couldn’t be her husband’s ‘guardian angel’ any more.

The experience of coping with her ‘junkie’ ex-husband had a profound impact on Veni and in 2008 she became involved in harm reduction, a global intervention program aimed at minimising the medical and social problems associated with illegal drug use. It does this by encouraging the use of legal substitution drugs, like methadone and subuxone, and distributing free clean needles and condoms.

Veni’s involvement in harm reduction started when she was invited to give a testimonial as the wife of an injecting drug user (IDU). Soon after, she was recruited by several non-government agencies (NGOs) in Jakarta to do outreach work meeting with drug users, distributing clean needles and referring those who want access to treatment. She has found outreach work a positive way to share her experience of living with a drug user while, at the same time, earning enough money to provide for her children. Veni believes that she is not only helping drug users and their families but also helping to manage the emotional pain and trauma of her past.

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Thumbnail: Flickr Partha S. Sahana