Female drug users, India
India has the largest number of heroin users in Asia. The women who use drugs are at increased risk from HIV and violence, but they’re ‘missing’ from official national data and so their needs largely go unmet.
WINGS is a harm reduction initiative in Delhi, Manipur and Pune, the first of its kind to address all the risks faced by female drug users.
Produced for Frontline AIDS. All participants were kept anonymous except for staff, due to high levels of stigma.

Pemu Bhutia from Alliance India oversees WINGS in India.
Female-friendly services are essential as women struggle to get through the door of traditional, male-dominated, centres.
“If she can get away from the house without being questioned or accompanied, and she can get across to the building without neighbours seeing, and she can pass through the crowd of guys in the doorway, she then has to sit in an intimating male environment until she is seen.”
Female-friendly services are essential as women struggle to get through the door of traditional, male-dominated, centres.
“If she can get away from the house without being questioned or accompanied, and she can get across to the building without neighbours seeing, and she can pass through the crowd of guys in the doorway, she then has to sit in an intimating male environment until she is seen.”

“I was 15 when I got married,” says Samaira (name changed).
India has the highest number of child brides in the world. Samaira was forced to marry after she got into a car under the pretence of being offered a lift to go and buy a phone charger.
She left her 'husband' when her son was two months old. He followed her to her family home and forcibly and took the child. “That's when I started using drugs.”
India has the highest number of child brides in the world. Samaira was forced to marry after she got into a car under the pretence of being offered a lift to go and buy a phone charger.
She left her 'husband' when her son was two months old. He followed her to her family home and forcibly and took the child. “That's when I started using drugs.”

Preeti rents a small, brightly decorated room with her husband of three years, in central Imphal, Manipur.
Their daughter was born four months ago, and the room exudes the warmth of a happy family home.
Baby blankets, towels and clothes are drying or stacked up neatly, pictures and pans hang on the walls and there’s a big pot of lunch on the go.
Their daughter was born four months ago, and the room exudes the warmth of a happy family home.
Baby blankets, towels and clothes are drying or stacked up neatly, pictures and pans hang on the walls and there’s a big pot of lunch on the go.
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