Women drug abuse in Europe : Gender identity - Irefrea

out that the female sex is characterised by a lower level of scholastic instructioncompared to the male, precisely due to the lower economic availability.The degree of satisfaction concerning school is very limited, both due to thereported problems with the teachers and to the lack of interest. Teachers andcompanions don’t know that the condition of drug addiction, is often the reason ofexpulsion from school.This draws attention to the importance of the formation and training of the categoryof educators who currently do not seem to be sufficiently prepared or sensitized aboutthis problem. School seems to underestimate the importance of its own function in thetimely recognition of the symptoms linked to drug consumption and/or traumaticsituations, and the importance that such an early intervention would involve at a levelof prevention even if secondary.The impression given from this data is that even when the problem is recognised, theschool is unable to place itself in a network intervention, for example, by activating theservices responsible for childhood and adolescence support, since it recognises thefamily as the only privileged interlocutor and does not consider that in this case it mightnot be able, also emotionally, to confront the problem.The drug addict who emerges from the examinated sample describes a family withmultiple problems, with parents dependent on alcohol or with problems of dependenceon licit drugs, but also with psychological problems and deviance problems. In manycases the same problems can be found in the brothers and sisters who are also qualifiedas drug addicts and/or alcohol dependent.In a high percentage of cases, this woman has been the victim of ill-treatment and/orsexual abuse as a child or adolescent, also in the family environment, or has neverenjoyed adequate protection by the family itself. In this context it is opportune toremember that literature points out a positive correlation between sexual abuse/illtreatmentand deviant behaviour such as drug addiction, prostitution etc.Very often, the nucleus the woman acquires is also unstable; the partner isfrequently not the father of the child even if they are conceived often in thesurroundings of a relationship which is characterised in terms of stability, even if notdesired or planned.As far as work is concerned, the drug addict has the tendency to be inconstant andwas often unemployed in the semester preceding the interview. In the past she has madedifferent jobs which range across the different sectors which probably reflect thedifferent state of the work market in Europe. Above all, however, she has usedprostitution as a means of earning money.The working environment seems partially productive to experiences ofdiscrimination and marginalization linked to drug addiction. The interviewees,fundamentally multiple substances drug addicts according to the tendency seen also at aEuropean level, had their first contact with drugs at an average age of 17 years old (but64