Barriers to drug treatment for prostitution - Case Study Example

Running head: Barriers to effective drug treatment for street-level prostitution EN 200 of Date: Problem description Many barriers have been presented in the quest to treat drug addiction in street-level prostitution (Marshal, 2007). This is as a result of the close linkage that exists between the two. This has proved to be a big problem due to the large number of people it affects. This problem mainly affects women involved in prostitution although it extends to their families and eventually to the entire society. This situation needs to change to save these women and their families from further disintegration. If this situation continues, it will lead to the death of many women engaged in prostitution, and as result, a disintegration of their families. A family is the basic unit of the society and its disintegration will spell disaster for this society. Claim of policy and action The barriers to effective drug treatment for street-level prostitution need to be reduced if not completely eliminated. This calls for the involvement of various stakeholders including counselors, doctors, clinicians, social workers, the appropriate government agencies, the community, and the women themselves and anyone else involved with prostitutes. There is a strong relationship between street-level prostitution and drug abuse, according to findings of a number of researches. Campbell (2002) further found out that the best way to reduce the number of women engaged in street prostitution is to tackle the issue of drug use. According to Cusick (1998), drug use has been found to be high not only on the streets, but also indoors. However, it has also been found that street workers use more money on drugs, are more frequent users and prefer highly addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin (Campbell, 2002). Women involved in street prostitution have been found to spend about 75 per cent of their income on drugs (May et al, 1999). There is therefore an urgent need to tackle the problem of drug abuse among these women. This will go a long way in curtailing the welfare and health costs that come with drug abuse and prostitution (Church et al, 2001). Women involved in prostitution are often physically and psychologically abused by their clients. It is not uncommon to see them fragile, scared and unsure of themselves. They also develop a number of medical issues such as hepatitis C, dental problems, and abscesses. Many of these women do not see any need to visit a medical expert such as a doctor, and only go to the emergency room when the situation warrants. They argue that the treatment they receive from doctors is not good; they also claim that doctors brush them aside. To tackle this problem, a survey will be carried out to find out the exact barriers upon which to base our intervention. The desired outcome is to reduce or completely eliminate the barriers to effective drug treatment for street-level prostitution. Methodology To investigate this topic further, nine women from Glassgow city were interviewed. These women had to meet a number of requirements for them to participate in this survey. First, they had to have been practicing prostitution for the last one month or so. Second, they had to have used stimulant drugs or opiate within the last one month at least four times. Third, they had to have perceived their drug abuse as a big problem. All this was in order to understand where these women are coming from. The participants' age ranged between 23 and 55 years, and their period of engagement in prostitution was between three and eighteen years. All the participants admitted to being opiate users, and the quantity of heroine used daily ranged between one and eight bags. A majority of these women also admitted to using other substances such as tranquilizers and cocaine. All the women attributed their engaging in prostitution to opiate addiction. The number of nights or days that these participants were engaged in acts of prostitution were greatly determined by the level of their addiction. All the participants admitted to being engaged in prostitution every night of the week, with three women also operating during the day. Results From this survey, five themes constituting barriers to the treatment of drug addition were found. First, these women were found to have a very poor sense of self worth. They expressed great hatred for what they were doing and the people they did it with. They also expressed a great sense of self-hatred and admitted to being depressed quite often. More often than not, these women were had a guilty conscience and sincerely wanted to stop what they were doing. The participants described discrimination across the various services designed to give support in tackling the issue of drug addiction. The women's self worth makes them think that they are not worth saving or worse still, that they cannot be saved no matter the effort applied. Many of the participants were scared of looking at their history or even talking about it. It is therefore very difficult to help them with their addiction since this requires the patients to talk a little about where they are coming from. Treatment of addiction requires that the patient looks at himself or herself sober. Many of these women had a lot of shame and guilt; hence their treatment became a great challenge. The second theme clearly brought out in this survey was trust and consistency. The trust concept came out as a great mediator of the effectiveness of treatment. They regarded their first experiences with these services as an important element in deciding whether to continue with the services or withdraw from them. The providers of addiction treatment must therefore ensure they develop a sense of trust between them and the patients from the very beginning. The women expressed their unwillingness to talk or even get to know the treatment provider unless they can trust that the providers will be there. This makes it very hard to engage them. They are usually not willing to relive their story, and failing to engage them from the very beginning greatly increases the chances of losing them. The third theme clearly brought out in the survey is lack of an all-inclusive treatment package. Although these women experienced physiological addiction, the drugs prevented them from suffering psychological distress. For these participants, the failure of clinicians and social workers in recognizing this presents another barrier to success of drug treatment. This calls for the treatment of the whole person as opposed to treating only the addiction. The fourth theme brought out is the discrepancy that exists between the women's readiness to be treated and the availability of these treatment services. The women's decision to seek medical attention does not come from rational thinking but from desperation. The participants' admitted to having gone through a chaotic lifestyle, and find it very hard to get out of it. The women's accounts explain how important timing is if any success is expected in the treatment of addictive behavior. The current treatment provisions do not seem to address the importance of timing in addiction treatment. It is important that the addicts get treatment services whenever they feel they need them. The last theme brought in the survey is lack of treatment provisions for drug-addicted couples. According to Barnard and McKeganey (1996) a majority of women involved in prostitution maintain not only their own drug habits, but also those of their partners. This situation was also clearly brought out in this survey. However, it has discovered men and women require different kinds of treatment. This therefore means taking addiction treatment as couples cannot work. This is made worse by the women's difficulty in focusing on themselves and instead focusing so much on their partners. Moreover seeking these services as a couple increases the woman's tendency of worrying about what they say, hence affecting their honesty. Measure of success The success of this endeavor will be measured by how close we get to the identifying the barriers to effective drug treatment for street-level prostitution. Once we get information, it will be easier for the various stakeholders such as counselors, doctors, clinicians, social workers, the appropriate government agencies, the community, and the women themselves to rehabilitate these women. Assumptions This survey will assume that people clearly understand the meaning of a prostitute and an addict. It also assumes that people care about these social deviants; prostitutes and addicts. This is a very reasonable assumption since a great deal of people is familiar with addiction and prostitution. However, although people have a general idea about what prostitution is, they do not have a full understanding of what these prostitutes undergo. Many people regard them as bad and dirty; they generally have very bad information about them. Opposition and weaknesses This survey is likely to face some opposition from the women involved in prostitution since they might think their privacy is being interfered with, especially those not willing to be rehabilitated. More opposition is also likely to come from interest groups such as the women's clients and those involved in illicit drugs. Weaknesses of this solution are the small number of participants in the survey. More accurate results can be achieved when a bigger sample is used as opposed to just nine women. The solution will also face such issues as inadequate finances, limited timeframe, practicality of the ideas presented, chances of the endeavor's success and, acceptability to all the stakeholders. This solution might be opposed on the grounds of interfering with the privacy of the women involved in prostitution. However, I still believe this is the best solution since it goes down to the root of the problem and also involves all the stakeholders. Conclusion This paper investigated the barriers to effective drug treatment for street-level prostitution. It identified a number of them after a survey that involved women involved in prostitution. This information will greatly assist the stakeholders; including stakeholders including counselors, doctors, clinicians, social workers, the appropriate government agencies, the community, the women themselves and anyone else involved with prostitutes; in tackling this problem. References Barnard, M and Mckeganey, N (1996) Sex Work on the Streets- Prostitutes and their Clients, Open University Press, Buckingham Campbell, R (2002) Working on the street-An evaluation of the Linx Project 1998-2001, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool Church, S et al (2001) Violence by clients towards female prostitutes in different work settings, British Medical Journal Cusick, L (1998) Female prostitution in Glasgow-drug use and occupational sector, Addiction Research Marshal, L (2007) Barriers to effective drug addiction treatment women involved in street level prostitution, Wiley InterScience May, T, at al (1999) Street Business-The Links between Sex and Drug Markets, Police Research Series, London Read More