Newsweek: Afghan Farmers Forced To Sell Their Daughters To Pay Loans

Newsweek:

Khalida's father says she's 9--or maybe 10. As much as Sayed Shah loves his 10 children, the functionally illiterate Afghan farmer can't keep track of all their birth dates. Khalida huddles at his side, trying to hide beneath her chador and headscarf. They both know the family can't keep her much longer. Khalida's father has spent much of his life raising opium, as men like him have been doing for decades in the stony hillsides of eastern Afghanistan and on the dusty southern plains. It's the only reliable cash crop most of those farmers ever had. Even so, Shah and his family barely got by: traffickers may prosper, but poor farmers like him only subsist. Now he's losing far more than money. "I never imagined I'd have to pay for growing opium by giving up my daughter," says Shah.

The family's heartbreak began when Shah borrowed $2,000 from a local trafficker, promising to repay the loan with 24 kilos of opium at harvest time. Late last spring, just before harvest, a government crop-eradication team appeared at the family's little plot of land in Laghman province and destroyed Shah's entire two and a half acres of poppies. Unable to meet his debt, Shah fled with his family to Jalalabad, the capital of neighboring Nangarhar province. The trafficker found them anyway and demanded his opium. So Shah took his case before a tribal council in Laghman and begged for leniency. Instead, the elders unanimously ruled that Shah would have to reimburse the trafficker by giving Khalida to him in marriage. Now the family can only wait for the 45-year-old drugrunner to come back for his prize. Khalida wanted to be a teacher someday, but that has become impossible. "It's my fate," the child says.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[whywhy]

That Ny times mag story on the Korengal has got me reading everything I can find about Afghanistan.

The taliban had opium production way down, but now it's way up---however there is a worldwide shortage of morphine! You guys above are right, we should buy it or facilitate the legitimate purchase of it.

But the frightening thing about what's happening over there is massive deforestation, enhanced by the occupation. That's why the Korengal people want the border open to pak--to sell the cedar. The taliban used to charge them huge tarrifs and require that exports be channeled thorugh kybur etc, where they would charge 400.00 a truck load in taxes. The locals in the mountains of course get about 5% or less than what the wood is worth in pak

There are some incredible afghan blogs now, and eye popping videos at liveleak.

Also stumbled accross the story of the Kalesh and the crazy Maureen Lines who has made them her cause.

Goggle that stuff and it will take your mind right off our silly race

[Robert59]

What would be a much better use of our money is for the U.S. government to buy the opium. Plenty of places in the world could use free morphine for pain relief. Destroying fields or forcing farmers to convert to another crop that can't put food on their table (do the math, you own 2.5 acres. you grow opium. you earn 6250.00 in a year. you can feed your family. you grow wheat you earn 625.00 in a year. you sell your daughter).

This policy will breed more insurgents.

[irishgawdess]

Afghanistan is rife with corruption. The only elected government official is Kharzaid. Everyone below him is appointed. To get anything done you have to bribe government officials. Inflation is rampant for consumer goods; many families can hardly afford to buy enough food. The Afghan marriage custom (not the example above) is for the bride's family to provide a dowry. It costs so much now that many Afghanis have been forced to borrow the money they need from the businessmen running the opium trade. Often they can't make the repayment... their wages haven't kept up with inflation.

Hence the reason Sayed Shah was forced to give his daughter to the opium trader.

[ResidentChimp]

Of course, no one in Afghanistan sold their daughters before President Bush got elected. What a joke. The surrender monkeys here are willing to sell their Country. Which is worse?

[KenGirard]

Exodus 21:7 - If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.

Seems some things never change.

Of course here in America a book that pushed such ideas would only be placed in every hotel room, and considered the divine words of an infoulable deity.

[ChiGuy]

In total, we have spent as much on our 6 years of efforts in Afghanistan, as we do on ONE MONTH in Iraq.

The Bush Destabilization Project continues...

[fact finder]

This is despicable . Where the hell is Bush and Company.? Those unspeakable vermin is D.C. should be helping the people of a Country that they destroyed instead of allowing this to happen.

[Knowledgeseeker]

I hope this story is not true, because its sad
I hope the US is doing something immediately to stop this practice

[Boobaloo]

holy lord, how unbearable.

I feel like Im going to be ill .... that poor little girl and her family.

Is there anything we can do to help this family? Where the hell is Karzai that puppet we have installed, instead destroying peoples livelihoods and handing all the power to the drug dealers, why isnt he using the police to crack down on these thugs? How can these so called tribal 'elders' sell a little girl away? How is that ethical or fair?

[fact finder]

Sorry is was supposed to be in. Just very very angry.

[Marichu]

This is obscene. That a father is reduced to selling (just the thought makes me nauseous) his child to pay off a debt is outrageous. And that this 9 or 10-year-old little girl, Khalida, will be the bride of a 45-year-old man is criminal. The religious or tribal laws in Afghanistan may deem this acceptable, but Khalida should not be made to endure such a travesty. Why should the sins of the father be visited upon the child?
But what really broke my heart was her resignation to her fate. Like her, who knows how many more children have been forced into such a life. Their dreams and hopes have been taken away from them with no recourse or succor for a different life.

[who38]

This man has far more children than he can support. Why should his child have to pay for his sexual excess? Why aren't the anti-abortionist groups lining up to adopt this child or pay off Daddy's debt?

If your heart is really broken by this child's resignation to her fate, please adopt Khalida or make a massive donation to any group that is trying to make women less helpless...FICA would be a start.

[Marichu]

who38

Adopting from a foreign country has become very difficult for Americans. I have a neighbor that adopted a child living in abject poverty, from Guatemala. It cost approximately 25,000 and over a year to adopt the little girl. This adoption took place over four years ago. Now it has become next to impossible to adopt a child not just from Guatemala but also from any other country. Governments have severely tightened and placed restrictions on foreign (i.e., USA) adoptions.
Your suggestion of my adopting Khalida, while kind and caring, in actuality is an impossibility. I do make donations to a local charitable agency that focuses on children and send monetary contributions to UNICEF. You too could make a difference in a child's life by making a generous donation to UNICEF or any other international relief agency.
Each one of us could make a difference in the life of a child.

[Nova16]

People in New Orleans are required by the Bush administration to repay overpayments made as a result of Katrina--how can we pay to destroy the opium business in Afghanistan and treat our own citizens with out regard to pay back government errors.

[DRaymond]

Opium is not the only viable crop but it is the only crop for which the farmers can get quick and ready funding and the only one where you can also dig out of a prior debt. So what they should be doing is instead of forcing the famers further into debt and into the control of the Taliban they should offer a one time amnesty/buyout purchase of the opium at full market price followed by financing for any other crop other than opium

[Vexed]

Welcome to western civilization!

[lisakaz]

Yeeek. I wonder when ppl will have to start selling children here?

[peterg76]

You've never heard of a sports "scholarship"?

[Denni]

What a sense of dread I'm feeling, right now. It's inconceivable that the council didn't rule to imprison the trafficker, but would sell a child, instead.

[rzan]

A female child.