Charity Pays Female Drug Addicts To Use Contraception

A US charity has claimed that it had paid 26 female drug addicts in UK to have contraceptive coils or implants fitted.

Project Prevention said it had made initial payments of 60 pounds, reports the Telegraph.

Barbara Harris, who founded the US charity, attracted criticism in October after offering to pay British addicts 200 pounds if they were sterilized.

Martin Barnes, chief executive of charity DrugScope, said the concept was 'exploitative, ethically dubious and morally questionable'.

No women took up the incentive, but Harris hopes focusing on birth control will be more successful.

"It's tough to kick a drug habit, but at least if these women get on birth control it's one less thing that they have to worry about in their lives," she told Radio 5 Live Breakfast.

"People have to understand that these women don't want to conceive children that are just going to be taken away from them," she added.

Harris, from North Carolina, adopted four children born to a crack addict mother.

She said that Project Prevention pays around 200 pounds to addicts who prove they are using birth control.

"We do offer them money, but the money gets their attention and keeps them focused long enough to follow through and do what they know that they need to do anyway. They're grateful and thankful that they did that," she added.

Meanwhile, UK charity Kaleidoscope Project is also planning to launch a similar incentive scheme in the form of shopping vouchers.

Addicts could receive up to 50 pounds to use at a supermarket if they attend a family clinic and discuss the consequences of having sex.

Source: ANI