Newsweek: Opium Brides on the Rise in Afghanistan as Government Moves to Eradicate Opium Production
|
|
Given that Afghanistan for their efforts to eliminate poppy cultivation, many poor peasants, proceeds from the plants have their daughters to sell their debts to local merchants, the loans in exchange for opium . Many farmers have a large part of their lives in improving the opium rocky slopes of eastern Afghanistan and in the southern plains dusty as the only reliable cash crop. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080330/NYSU002) In the April edition of Newsweek 7 (log newsstands Monday, March 31), Afghanistan Sami Yousafzai, a correspondent for South Asia and the Bureau Chief Ron Moreau report that the practice began with one of the Husband of the traditional family-father of the bride pays tribal Pashtuns are in society. These days, just in the amount of $ 3000 or so in poor countries like Laghman and Nangarhar in 8000 dollars or more in Helmand, Afghanistan’s No. 1 opium growing province. For a peasant desperate, the price of the bride can cure - but at a terrible cost. Among the Pashtuns, the debt constitutes a marriage lasting stain on the honor of the bride and her family. It is a disgrace for the country. President Hamid Karzai said a short time ago the nation: “I appeal to the human [not] girls to give them money, they should not be up to them to old men, and have force them to see. ” Nobody knows how many weddings are held debt, in Afghanistan, where 93 percent of the world’s heroin and other opiates come. But Afghans say, the number of loans married is increasing, that the efforts to eradicate poppy farmers urge more overdue. “This will be our darkest year since 2000,” Baz Mohammad, 65, a former farmer from opium Nangarhar. “More girls are sold for this year.” The old man lives with the fear of selling its own 13 - daughter years in the year 2000, after the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar banned poppy grows. “Lenders never show without mercy,” says the old man. Local Farmers say that the commitment made by a debtor to hand and foot, then locked in a small room with no windows Schwelbrand fire, the slow death by suffocation. While law enforcement provide yet another record harvest of opium in Afghanistan in the spring of this year, most farmers are struggling to survive. It is estimated that about 500000 Afghan families, by increasing poppy, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. During the past year, producers have been estimated at $ 1 billion for their crops - over $ 2000 per household. With at least six family members of the EU average, the combination of poppy cultivation per capita income is around 300 dollars. The real benefits go to the distributors, and their Taliban allies officials criminals who exploit them. The country is well-oiled machine drug generates more than $ 4 billion per year for the export of opium and heroin dealing - more than half of the GDP of $ 7.5 billion, after UNODC. The efforts for the promotion of other cultures in these areas have failed. In wheat or corn $ 250 per hectare brings a better, while poppy growers can expect 10 times more. In addition, more reliable poppy either bold as wheat or corn, and more tolerant towards drought and heat and extreme cold. And in a country where virtually no state-supported credit for small farmers, gardeners of opium, you can advance on their crops. The borrower agrees that payment of cash so kilos of opium, at a price fixed by the lender - often 40 percent or more at current market value. Islam prohibits the fees charged on a loan, but money and distributors poppy country to evade the ban on packaging, transactions at the end of the harvest business - and never forget that the return on Investment is synonymous wear. Mohammad Zahir Khan, a battery of tenants in arrears of Nangarhar, in his 40, borrowed $ 850 in the spring of last year, the harvest hand, many promises for 10 kilos of opium to the lender - over $ 1250 on the market local. The cash bought food and other needs of his family and allowed him to seed, fertilizer and tends to help his three hectares of sharecropping. In the spring, it brought together 45 kilos of raw opium insert, half of which went immediately to land. But before Khan allowed to repay the loan, his wife fell seriously ill with a kidney disease. They were in need of improved medical coverage as could offer Nangarhar, he rushed them on the Pakistani border in a private hospital in Peshawar. It cost nearly every cent knew that Khan and his debts would only grow opium. To this must be added the fact that the governor of the province, a former called warlords Gul Agha Sherzai, has chosen this moment to explain his own war against drugs, the detention of hundreds of local farmers, who Record opium planting. Nangarhar 45000 hectares of poppy were in a year, other experts say today that the province is quite clean. At the end of last year has given reluctantly Khan, 16, her daughter, Gul Ghoti, within marriage to the lenders of 15 years, son. Besides Khan forgive the debt, creditors gave him a $ 1500 cash. Khan called an honorable man. “Until the end of my life, I feel because of the shame of what I have to my daughter,” says Khan. “I still can not on him in the eyes.” But, at least, she was old enough to get married, “he adds. He said a local farmer recently had promised the hand of his 2 month old daughter to liberate his family a debt of opium. Angiza Afridi has a large part of last year survey of more than 100 families of opium in marriages of two of the 22 districts of Nangarhar. The teacher and journalist from the local television had first-hand knowledge of the tragedy. Five years ago, one of his young aunts, then 16, was forced to marry a man of 55 years, to pay an old debt of opium uncle, and three years ago, a cousin of 8 years was also in marriage to make a property on Drug loan. “This practice, the girls can marry at the coverage of debt is always a bad habit,” said Afridi. In both districts, she studied nearly half of all new brides had received in marriage opium to pay down debt. The new, children are married off at age 5, until they are old enough for their greatest success, mostly as servants of their budgets and laws. “These poor girls have no future,” she says. The worst may be suicide. Afridi learned one aged 15, married opium poisoning, on her wedding day and the end of Last year, at age 11, with a lethal dose of opium at the same time. your new laws were refusing to abide by their parents did visit. |