Excerpts from my article written for The Fix
All photos courtesy of Mirzaei Films.
Laila at the Bridge—How to Combat Heroin Addiction in Afghanistan
A new documentary follows a woman’s efforts in Afghanistan to fight addiction.
Since the fall of the Taliban, the production of opium has skyrocketed. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world’s supply and 11% of the population there are addicts. Drug addiction is not recognized as a disease there and only a limited infrastructure for treatment exists.
Laila Haidari, 36, is an Afghan woman risking everything to save heroin addicts. Her older brother, Hakim, was an addict for 25 years. Laila is a former child bride, married against her will at age 12 to a much older man. She had her first child by 13 and by the end of her teen years, Laila had three children.
She wanted desperately to help her drug-addicted brother and escape her own unhappy life. At 21, Laila left her husband. It was a bold decision for an Afghan woman then living as a refugee in Iran. By leaving her husband, she was shunned by her family and her husband took her beloved children. With no rights and no help, she returned to her motherland, Afghanistan.
Filmmaker Elissa Sylvia Mirzaei, born in Pennsylvania, has lived in Afghanistan for eight years. She speaks fluent Dari and is drawn to intimate stories that reveal the complexity, beauty and tragedies of Afghanistan from an Afghan perspective. Shocked by the number of drug addicts using openly on the streets, Elissa felt helpless witnessing passersby step over the huddled and skeletal masses of dying junkies. She and her husband, Gulistan Mirzaei, founders of Mirzaei Films, met Laila in 2012 and were inspired to make their first feature-length documentary, Laila at the Bridge.
Dorri Olds: What does your film title, Laila at the Bridge, refer to?
Elissa Mirzaei: Laila Haidari is an amazing woman who courageously fled her situation and with her intense drive created a documentary about Afghan women that won awards at numerous festivals in the country. But, when Laila crossed over a notorious bridge in Kabul, known as pol-e-sokhta, which means “burned bridge,” she found her life’s true calling. She was horrified by the conditions she saw people living in by this putrid river, drug addicts injecting heroin amidst corpses. Men and women from all classes and castes and ethnic groups were suffering. Inspired by Mother Teresa, and desperate to help her addicted brother, she decided to start her own free treatment center.
The title comes from Laila’s work, which is based around the notorious bridge full of tragedy and death, but also because she offers another bridge to a new life. She sees herself as offering a lantern, leading the way down a path out of the darkness, but it’s ultimately up to the individual whether they will follow that path and stay clean. Another unique aspect of Laila’s Mother Camp is that addicts help other addicts. Those who have withdrawn and are on the road to recovery welcome new arrivals, shave their heads, wash their bodies caked in months of dirt from living under the bridge, give them hope and tell them that they’re in this together and they can get clean once and for all.
Do Laila’s “Mother Camps” provide methadone?
No, Laila’s center is a simple, low-cost operation that relies on cold-turkey withdrawal and the 12-step program. While cold-turkey withdrawal from heroin may shock us in the West, in the three years I’ve filmed the documentary about Laila, I have never seen it cause any medical problems for those in recovery. In fact, the opposite is true.
Is Laila in danger?
Yes, the world under the bridge is dangerous but not only due to the desperate addicts under the bridge, but also from the many drug dealers. By treating addicts, Laila is taking away their customers. She has been attacked on several occasions and threatened numerous times, but refuses to give up. Another huge threat is the corrupt policemen that take a cut from every dealer in exchange for not arresting them. As a woman in Afghanistan doing this work on her own, she faces many challenges but Laila is no victim. In our film, one of our intentions is to make sure that Laila never comes across as a victim, despite her hardships. She’s an incredibly strong, brave, and complex woman who is determined to change things.
My husband and I have had some risky situations. Corrupt policemen who became aware of our frequent presence at the bridge for our film have followed us. There are good policemen in Afghanistan, but even high-level government officials are involved in the drug trade. We in the West hear that it’s the Taliban who are profiting from the drug trade but we found out that’s only part of the story. The drug mafia is far more dangerous than the Taliban. One of the aims of our film is to show how complex Afghanistan is and that it’s not always clear who the enemy is. What the West understands about the Afghan people is actually very little. Our film is about a country that is broken after many wars, where every Afghan family has a scar and part of the collective trauma is addiction.
Laila and Elissa
Click here for more photos
Learn more about the Mirzaei film, Laila at the Bridge
Laila Haidari, 36, is an Afghan woman risking everything to save heroin addicts. Her older brother, Hakim, was an addict for 25 years. Laila is a former child bride, married against her will at age 12 to a much older man. She had her first child by 13 and by the end of her teen years, Laila had three children.
She wanted desperately to help her drug-addicted brother and escape her own unhappy life. At 21, Laila left her husband. It was a bold decision for an Afghan woman then living as a refugee in Iran. By leaving her husband, she was shunned by her family and her husband took her beloved children. With no rights and no help, she returned to her motherland, Afghanistan.
Filmmaker Elissa Sylvia Mirzaei, born in Pennsylvania, has lived in Afghanistan for eight years. She speaks fluent Dari and is drawn to intimate stories that reveal the complexity, beauty and tragedies of Afghanistan from an Afghan perspective. Shocked by the number of drug addicts using openly on the streets, Elissa felt helpless witnessing passersby step over the huddled and skeletal masses of dying junkies. She and her husband, Gulistan Mirzaei, founders of Mirzaei Films, met Laila in 2012 and were inspired to make their first feature-length documentary, Laila at the Bridge.
Dorri Olds: What does your film title, Laila at the Bridge, refer to?
Elissa Mirzaei: Laila Haidari is an amazing woman who courageously fled her situation and with her intense drive created a documentary about Afghan women that won awards at numerous festivals in the country. But, when Laila crossed over a notorious bridge in Kabul, known as pol-e-sokhta, which means “burned bridge,” she found her life’s true calling. She was horrified by the conditions she saw people living in by this putrid river, drug addicts injecting heroin amidst corpses. Men and women from all classes and castes and ethnic groups were suffering. Inspired by Mother Teresa, and desperate to help her addicted brother, she decided to start her own free treatment center.
The title comes from Laila’s work, which is based around the notorious bridge full of tragedy and death, but also because she offers another bridge to a new life. She sees herself as offering a lantern, leading the way down a path out of the darkness, but it’s ultimately up to the individual whether they will follow that path and stay clean. Another unique aspect of Laila’s Mother Camp is that addicts help other addicts. Those who have withdrawn and are on the road to recovery welcome new arrivals, shave their heads, wash their bodies caked in months of dirt from living under the bridge, give them hope and tell them that they’re in this together and they can get clean once and for all.
Do Laila’s “Mother Camps” provide methadone?
No, Laila’s center is a simple, low-cost operation that relies on cold-turkey withdrawal and the 12-step program. While cold-turkey withdrawal from heroin may shock us in the West, in the three years I’ve filmed the documentary about Laila, I have never seen it cause any medical problems for those in recovery. In fact, the opposite is true.
Is Laila in danger?
Yes, the world under the bridge is dangerous but not only due to the desperate addicts under the bridge, but also from the many drug dealers. By treating addicts, Laila is taking away their customers. She has been attacked on several occasions and threatened numerous times, but refuses to give up. Another huge threat is the corrupt policemen that take a cut from every dealer in exchange for not arresting them. As a woman in Afghanistan doing this work on her own, she faces many challenges but Laila is no victim. In our film, one of our intentions is to make sure that Laila never comes across as a victim, despite her hardships. She’s an incredibly strong, brave, and complex woman who is determined to change things.
My husband and I have had some risky situations. Corrupt policemen who became aware of our frequent presence at the bridge for our film have followed us. There are good policemen in Afghanistan, but even high-level government officials are involved in the drug trade. We in the West hear that it’s the Taliban who are profiting from the drug trade but we found out that’s only part of the story. The drug mafia is far more dangerous than the Taliban. One of the aims of our film is to show how complex Afghanistan is and that it’s not always clear who the enemy is. What the West understands about the Afghan people is actually very little. Our film is about a country that is broken after many wars, where every Afghan family has a scar and part of the collective trauma is addiction.
Laila and Elissa
Click here for more photos
Learn more about the Mirzaei film, Laila at the Bridge