Crack cocaine users living on the streets β gender characteristics. The increase in the use of crack cocaine constitutes a challenge to public health in Brazil. The objectives of this article are to identify how gender relations are constituted in the daily lives of crack users, and to analyze the dynamics that permeate the construction of these relationships involving exchange and power.
This is a qualitative, descriptive, exploratory study of phenomenological orientation. The data was collected from crack users living on the streets in the Manguinhos community in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Some shifts were observed with respect to traditional and hierarchical arrangements of gender. The study of the relationships established in this research reveals that it is not possible to point to simply perpetrators or victims.
What emerges in the analysis is a plural and fluid universe, which is in permanent construction, with shifts that sometimes favor women and sometimes favor men. However, there is strong evidence that from onwards the use of this substance, and its association with several health problems, has become more frequent 1. Crack users often engage in risky behavior in order to maintain their consumption patterns and they are in a position of great social vulnerability.
In general, they do not have access to education or formal work and most of them live on the streets 2 β 4. In a survey of young people and adults aged 12 β 65, living in cities with more than , inhabitants in Brazil, males had a higher prevalence of crack use, both in and in 1. Another study, which was conducted with students of primary and secondary education in the public and private school systems in 27 capital cities, pointed to differences in substance use among young users: a higher proportion of young males reported illicit drug use, including crack, while young people women reported a higher consumption of drugs without prescription 3.
However, even if the prevalence of male crack consumption is higher, women have a more significant risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, such as hepatitis and HIV, due to a greater use of the female body as a form of exchange for drugs. Women have a large number of sexual partners and condoms are seldom used during sex 4 β 7. There are frequent reports of physical and sexual violence among this group of women especially related to negotiations about the use of condoms 8.
