Mothers fight to protect children from drugs as ‘hotspotting' takes hold in Lesotho

The Guardian

2 days ago

Pontso Tumisi remembers seeing crystal meth for the first time in her daughter's bedroom several years ago. When her daughter said the crystals were bath salts, she believed her. Now, she regrets that naivety.
Tumisi says a lack of knowledge about drugs among parents and guardians has allowed many children's use of dangerous substances to go undetected.
Amplifying the risks inherent in drug-taking is 'bluetoothing' or 'hotspotting', which involves drawing the blood of an intoxicated person and injecting into others to share the high – a trend that's been seen in several countries over the past few years, including Zimbabwe and South Africa.
In Lesotho, hotspotting usually involves crystal meth, which has become one of the most common drugs in urban areas.
Lesotho has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, and as Tumisi points out, bluetoothing increases the risk of spreading the virus as well as other blood-borne diseases.
Tumisi, 45, is now a public relations officer for Mokhosi oa Mangoana (A Mother's Cry), a women's organisation spearheading the fight against substance abuse in Lesotho, a landlocked country surrounded by South Africa, where half the population live below the poverty line.
'You would be shocked what parents are doing for their children out of love but unknowingly aiding substance abuse. Some are made to purchase different items and substances under the pretext of learning materials,' Tumisi says.
'Young children are using drugs in plain sight because parents and guardians have no information about harmful substances. Parents are buying their children things like meth pipes thinking they are for school, and hookahs and vapes, which are all harmful, thinking they're fashionable.
'When they think of drugs, they think of the smell of marijuana, but the bulk of substances used nowadays don't have such distinct smells. Some are edibles and they look just like sweets.'
While there are no official statistics on drug abuse in Lesotho, Mphonyane Mofokeng, founder of the Anti-Drug Abuse Association of Lesotho (Adaal), says a recent study by the Heal Our Land Organisation showed that 68% of high school pupils had used illicit substances. The study was carried out in the northern region of the country, which includes the capital, Maseru.
'This is proof enough of the high magnitude of substance use among young people in Lesotho,' says Mofokeng.
One parent told Adaal that her child started 'hotspotting' during the school holidays.
'Due to the shocking statistics and the harm that children are exposing themselves to through hotspotting, we are stepping up efforts to come up with preventive interventions as well as rehabilitation,' Mofokeng says.
Maj Gen Khomo Mohobo, who is part of an army-run youth development initiative at the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF), says bluetoothing is a serious concern.
'Young people, who sometimes do not have enough money to buy the drugs they want, are exposing themselves to all kinds of dangers by injecting themselves with the blood of others,' he says.
'A fix may cost R300 [about £12] and they contribute money and only one person takes the drugs. Once that person gets intoxicated, their friends then draw his or her blood and inject it into their own veins to get high.
'They call it hotspotting, but there are lot of terms that we hear the youths using when we do our youth development initiatives,' he adds.
When Tumisi realised her daughter was taking drugs, she contacted another woman, Mamphana Molosti, who lived in a neighbouring village and had been attacked by her drug addicted son. They decided to form an association of women in similar situations.
Mokhosi oa Mangoana provides information, counselling and training for mothers whose children are taking drugs and offers advice on detecting signs of substance abuse. The group has also been lobbying parliament to enact stricter laws and establish a working committee to monitor the situation, as well as building a rehabilitation centre.
But that has not been easy, she says. There is little political will to implement their ideas and they face frequent resistance from lower-ranking law enforcement officers, says Tumisi.
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'We have reported dealers to different police stations multiple times and even tried to effect citizens' arrests but that has not worked. In fact, we have realised that in some cases, officers are involved [in the drugs trade],' she says.
Molotsi, 47, survived a brutal attack in 2023 when her then 23-year-old son stabbed her after she questioned him about some money he had stolen.
'I only had 50 maloti [£2]in the house and my son took it and bought drugs. When I asked him, he became angry and he attacked me. He used everything that he could lay his hands on until he took a knife and stabbed me multiple times.
'The doctors said I was saved by one stab wound, which punctured my chest and allowed blood to flow out. Had it not been for that, my lungs would have filled up and I would have died.'
By the time she regained consciousness, her son was in custody.
Molotsi does not see her son as a monster but as someone who needed help. She visits him every week and is hoping he will be paroled soon from Maseru's squalid Central Correctional Institute.
She fears that if he serves all of his six-year term, he could come back more addicted. The prison featured in a Netflix documentary on the world's toughest prisons.
Earlier this month, Mokhosi oa Mangoana hosted trainers from the drug advisory programme (DAP) of the Colombo Plan, a Sri Lankan-based intergovernmental development organisation. The DAP, which operates in 80 countries, helps teach community leaders, counsellors, health professionals and police officers about the prevention and treatment of drug use.
The team was led by Colombo Plan's Africa manager, George Murimi, who said cases of drug abuse had increased exponentially in the past decade.
'We are receiving a lot of calls, mainly from women. That is an indicator that cases are more rampant,' says Tumisi. But she and Molotsi say they have not lost hope. 'We are prepared to continue fighting,' says Tumisi.
Yet they worry about the prevalence of dangerous methods of drug-taking such as bluetoothing. 'The work that has been done in fighting HIV and Aids is being reversed,' says Tumisi.
Mokhosi oa Mangoana, which now has 150 members, is working to educate ordinary citizens as well as health workers to curb stigmatisation in healthcare centres and communities.
Its members are all women as they are the worst affected, while men seldom open up about such matters, says Tumisi.
'As women, we are at risk. We are threatened daily. I have been attacked multiple times and my daughter has been assaulted and drugged in an attempt to deter me from fighting, but I'm not fazed. All hope will be lost if we buckle under pressure.'