Proyecto Hombre calls for gender perspective

The NGO Proyecto Hombre presented the results of a study showing the effectiveness of therapeutic communities, specificaly those used to fight addiction at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Proyecto Hombre also argued that this sort of treatment ought to employ a gender perspective.

The study, which was conducted with help from the Greek NGO Kethea, followed more than two hundred people who have resided voluntarily in closed communities while working physically and psychologically to overcome addictions with professionals from different fields. Its objective was to collect information about the profile, characteristics and needs of the service users.

The study shows that women only make up 12% of the people who have spent time in these communities and that when they do access a program they do it later and once their health has deteriorated more. This is due to social prejudices about addiction and to greater familial responsibilities, which make it hard to benefit from voluntary internment treatment.

The experts concluded that treatments must use more of a gender perspective and that funds and resources ought to be deployed to this end, for example, in order to help treat women with children at school-going-age.