Child heroin addicts on the rise in Pakistan

There has been an increase in the number of children in Pakistan addicted to heroin. While there is some help offered in the form of the family-run Dost Foundation charity, the weak economy of the country has made it harder to provide support.

Many of the youth come from Pakistan’s tribal areas, but had to flee because of poverty and conflict, eventually finding themselves living on the streets of Peshawar.

Nearly all of the five to 16-year-olds who are taken in by the Dost Foundation are heroin users.

According to a United Nations report released last year, 90 per cent of the world’s opium, from which heroin is made, is produced in Afghanistan. For Pakistan, the result is more than four million addicts, and an increasing number of them are children.

Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab reports from Peshawar.