By Ruth Keah.
The coastal town of Kenya has been associated with the business of drug trafficking which makes a large number of youths lured into using it.
Despite civil society calling for arrest of the main drug traffickers, the consumers {Drug addicts} are the ones who end up paying the price. They are arrested without any valid reason and end up in prison as some of them narrate.
‘I have been arrested several times without any reason, and when i ask them why they have arrested me, they say i have been roaming around’ These are the words of a 40 years old Mzee Juma Said , a resident of Kisauni Constituency in Mombasa County. Said is a recovering drug addict and has been using drugs for 8 years but for the last 4 years he has been undergoing rehabilitation programme at Reach Out Centre Trust In Mombasa. The centre was founded in 2003 whose main mandate is to provide harm reduction services, preventive and treatment services to those affected by or vulnerable to Alcohol, Drug Abuse (ADA) and HIV and AIDS in the Coastal area of Kenya.
Looking so calm and composed, Said narrates to me how he found himself in the hands of police officers and county askaris without any valid reason. He says during the period he has been using drugs, he has been arrested more than three times and found himself in the law courts and going to prison for up to 3 months.
He says at the time he was arrested he was relaxing with his friends at their normal resting places popularly known as MAENEO. ‘I went through a lot when i was using drugs, police would arrest me even when i am at a bus stop looking for my daily bread, and then they write for me charges of which am not aware of,’ says Said.
Sitting next to Said is is a 31 years old Faiza Jalali , waiting for me patiently so that she can also narrate to me her account with the police officers when she was addicted to heroin for 8 years. Faiza a mother of one is currently undergoing the rehabilitation programme at the same center.
Faiza comes from Majengo area in Mombasa and is currently at her 3rd year in the rehabilitation programme and unlike Said ,Faiza says she can remember she has been arrested by police more than 6 times. And all the time she was arrested she was taken to court and eventually sent to prison where she spends not less than one month imprisonment.
‘Yes i have been arrested by police officers, as soon as they see you very week,they believe that you are a drug addict, they arrest you and write any wrong doing as long as they take you to court’, she says.
Faiza was not able to raise Ksh 3000 bail as charged by the court, the main reason which always found herself in prison. Faiza however called on the police and the government to keep measures and ensure that when they arrest drug addicts, they take them to rehabilitation center instead of sending them to prison.
‘My appeal to police is to take the drug addicts to rehabilitation center when they arrest them, because these people are sick, arresting and sending them to jail won’t help then get out of the vice’,says Faiza.
Wallid Yussuf popularly known as Debayo is 60 years old, He has been using all sorts of drugs for a period of 30 years, He says this is because of the nature of his job as a s
ea fearer which made him access all sorts of drugs with ease.
He is currently undergoing rehabilitation at Reachou Center Trust but the challenges which Said and Faiza went through are not different from his. He says each and every time he came across Police officers, he was sure that he will be arrested.
He says he was arrested too many times he can’t even count them, but since he had some money, he never saw the courts or prisons gate near him, he used to give the police money and he was set free.
‘I have been arrested so many times even if i am in a car or TukTuk just relaxing, but i pay something small and am set free,as he puts it money talks bulsheet walk,’ Wallid says while laughing.
It’s from such tales of despair from drug addicts and the minority groups which provoked organizations such as Reach Out Centre Trust and International Commission of Jurists {ICJ-K} to ask the government through the judiciary to make sure that such cases are solved in a good and proper manner so that the victims wont just end up in prisons.
According to them such people are the cause of congestion in the prisons, making the government to spend more money on them instead on investing the money in other projects and finally increase corruption cases in the country.
Taib Abdulrahman is the Executive director at Reach Out Center Trust, He says with partnership with the county government are in the process of structuring laws which will see drug addicts walk free or sent to rehabilitation centers when they are arrested by police.
He agrees that most of the drug addicts find themselves in prisons for reasons which are not even familiar with.
‘So many people are arrested especially when they are in MAENEO areas, and they end up spending three or more months in prison, i recommend before their cases are determined first of all they must be weighed because you can’t sentence a drug addict the same as a person who has been accused of cutting someone with a panga,’Said Taib.
He adds that they are currently working with the judiciary to see that drug addicts who are arrested are given smaller punishments as they continue with their rehabilitation programme.
According to Miritini Member of County Assembly in Mombasa county who is also the chairman for committee of health Kibwana Swaleh Baya ,they are in the process of structuring laws with the county askaris department that will make sure drug addicts who are arrested are taken care of.
According to Swaleh, statistics show that people who are arrested because of petty offences especially drug addicts in Mombasa are so many, with 30 people being take to court every week while more than that number are set free after giving money to the police.
According to statistics of Mombasa county court shows that approximately 50 petty offenders are taken to court everyday including drug addicts, a move which normally sees those with money pay out their bail and walking free and those who can’t afford the money just end up in prison.
