Factors associated with heroin addiction among male adults in Lahore, Pakistan

The objective of this matched case control study was to evaluate the factors associated with heroin addiction among male heroin addicts of age 15 to 35 years in Lahore. A total of 233 heroin addicts, matched on neighborhood controls, were enrolled at a case control ratio of 1:2. Multivariate conditional logistic regression analysis was carried out to study the independent relationship of hypothesized factors with heroin addiction. The factors associated with heroin addiction were parental disharmony (i.e. occasional fights versus no fights: adjusted matched odds ratio (adj. mOR) = 4.3, 95% CI: 2.4-7.8; frequent fights versus no fights: adj. mOR = 6.0, 95% CI: 2.8-16.6), drug using peers (adj. mOR = 5.6, 95% CI, 2.6-12.1), alcohol use (adj. mOR = 4.2, 95% CI, 2.3-7.6). use of over the counter available drugs (adj. mOR = 4.1, 95% CI, 1.8-10.6), father\u27s absence (adj. mOR = 2.9, 95% CI, 1.6-5.5), non-formal schooling of the mother (adj. mOR = 2.8, 95% CI, 1.7-4.7), non-formal schooling of the respondent (adj. mOR = 2.4, 95% CI, 1.5-3.8), and the presence of a drug user among similar age group family members (adj. mOR = 2.4, 95% CI, 1.3-4.8). It is recommended that public health strategies be formulated based on various facets of the problem revealed by this and previous research to prevent illicit drug use

Discourses of gender identities and gender roles in Pakistan: Women and non-domestic work in political representations

This paper aims to explore some of the manifold and changing links that official Pakistani state discourses forged between women and work from the 1940s to the late 2000s. The focus of the analysis is on discursive spaces that have been created for women engaged in non-domestic work. Starting from an interpretation of the existing academic literature, this paper argues that Pakistani women's non-domestic work has been conceptualised in three major ways: as a contribution to national development, as a danger to the nation, and as non-existent. The paper concludes that although some conceptualisations of work have been more powerful than others and, at specific historical junctures, have become part of concrete state policies, alternative conceptualisations have always existed alongside them. Disclosing the state's implication in the discursive construction of working women's identities might contribute to the destabilisation of hegemonic concepts of gendered divisions of labour in Pakistan