Women pay a price in war on Afghan drug trade:Poppy debts paid w daughters

[Glenda]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2005/09/28/wo... /

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | September 28, 2005

This year, a US-backed eradication effort has sharply cut Nangarhar's (Afghan province) lucrative poppy cultivation, but the sharecroppers' debts remain. Now, some of the region's poorest farmers say they are being forced to repay traffickers with the only thing they have left: their daughters.

Giving a daughter to repay a debt is a rare but age-old practice among the rural tribesmen of Afghanistan. A payment of last resort, the daughter is almost always given as a bride to the money-lender or to his son, but is sometimes given as a servant, according to the International Organization for Migration

..


''Of course, it is a failure when people sell a woman," said Arbab Asif, a landowner who leases plots to 58 sharecropping families. ''But these people are very poor. They don't have any other alternative."

...
One 25-year-old-man, a juice-seller in Jalalabad, the provincial capital, said he got married last year to a 14-year-old girl whose family could not pay off a poppy loan to his father. He said his father had waited two years for the loan to be repaid before requesting the debtor's daughter

''After two years, my father went and asked him, 'Can you return my money to me? Otherwise, my son is an adult. Please give your daughter to him,' " the 25-year-old recalled, describing the transaction matter-of-factly. ''I am quite happy with my wife, but there is still tension between the families. They do not express their feelings, but they remain secret enemies."

[bemildred]

1. I read we could have bought the whole damn crop for LESS than we spent. nt

[Bruce McAuley]

3. Yeah, but the CIA made LOTS off the sale of the opium, I suspect.

Who else but the CIA has the connections and the power and the previous experience to move so much opium?
Black Afghani opium money, they love it! No Pentagon watching, and money to burn on other black-ops scenarios.

Bruce

[motherearthdying]

2. But I thought we brought women's rights

and democracy to this part of the world. That's what the pResident sez.

[wellstone_democrat]

4. But, but...Laura *said* this was all to help those women!!!

This must be wrong because Pickles, "the comforter in chief" was trotted out to tell us that we *must* go to Afghanistan to free women! So, this can't be happening or she would fix it. She would use her vast influence with her husband.

I'm absolutely sure both that she would do this and that she has influence with the chimp. Absolutely sure.

[oneold1-4u]

8. Not a woman-

left in Afghanistan who is allowed to go out in public alone or hold any job that she was formerly educated for! This is what the US brought about for all females. They were selling their young girls before, so that is not real news, but now they would sell the highest educated into servitude as well. A female Dr,nurse,scientist,or any that were educated, (many hundreds)who were not able to leave, are now placed back into body coverings and not allowed to even speak!

[TahitiNut]

5. It sounds like "Bankruptcy Reform" has been enacted there, too.

[rodeodance]

6. maybe Karen Hughes need to go there?

[rodeodance]

7. this was posted earlier on DU--women, SA and Karen and driving cars.

Tue Sep-27-05 11:45 PM
Original message
NYT: Saudi women depart from the script (refute Hughes)


Facing a restless college audience of nearly 500 Saudi women - teachers, students and professionals, but all covered in black from head to foot - Karen Hughes tentatively broached the topic of equal rights on Tuesday, expressing hope that one day "women will be able to fully participate in society."

But the response to the Bush administration's top "public diplomacy" envoy on her first trip to the Middle East seemed to take her aback, as several listeners complained vehemently that just because they were not allowed to vote or drive did not mean they were unfairly treated or imprisoned in their homes.

"We're not in any way barred from talking to the other sex," said Dr. Nada Jambi, a public health professor. "It's not an absolute wall."

Another charged that just as Saudi men were viewed unfairly as terrorists, Saudi women were seen unfairly as victims. "The general image of the Arab women is that she isn't happy," she said. "Well, we're all pretty happy." The room resounded with applause.

(snip)

"There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country," said Dr. Siddiqa Kamal, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs her own hospital. "I don't want to drive a car. I worked hard for my medical degree. Why do I need a driver's license?"

more…
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/27/news/diplo.php#

[MountainLaurel]

9. Don't give the Repukes any ideas

Next thing you know, they'll have a special program that will forgive those enormous debts caused by your wife's cancer treatment if you sign up your children for a 10-year stint in the military.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. This is especially infuriating because all the money being wasted in

Iraq could have and should have gone toward rebuilding Afghanistan, including putting people to work building roads and public buildings, giving micro loans to people who wanted to start businesses, sending agricultural advisors to figure out what crops could best be grown there and providing seeds and animals for farmers, and otherwise giving desperate people something to do besides grow opium poppies.

[Dulcinea]

11. That's barbaric.

Sick, sick, sick to think that this goes on in 2005.

[tanyev]

12. A couple more years of the Bush gang and maybe it will happen here, too.

[Moderator]

13. kick

[buzzsaw_23]

14. Opium Farmers Sell Daughters to Cover Debts to Traffickers

Opium farmers sell daughters to cover debts to traffickers

By Justin Huggler in Laghman, Afghanistan

Published: 03 October 2005


Afghan farmers prevented from growing poppies under a British-led eradication programme have been forced to hand over their daughters to drug traffickers to settle their debts, according to reports from Afghanistan.

The claim is the latest in a series to dog the British effort to curb Afghanistan's opium industry.

Opium dominates Afghanistan's economy, accounting for 60 per cent of its income. Critics say the country is turning into a narco-state under the noses of Nato peacekeeping forces, and of the Western governments involved in reconstruction.

The latest claims come from Nangahar province, which has been held up by the British, put in charge of the fight against opium in Afghanistan, as their biggest success. Opium cultivation fell by 96 per cent there this year, part of a 21 per cent fall nationwide.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article...

[Psephos]

15. Drugs aren't quite the victimless crime some make them out to be

I'm not in favor of the WOD - just observing that narcotics create human misery up and down the supply chain.

Peace.

[Webster Green]

16. Not the drugs, but the laws against them...

The effects of the idiotic laws are far worse than the effects of the drugs themselves.

[Psephos]

18. I agree in part; here's how I could agree in whole:

If you rephrased your post to read, "The effects of some idiotic laws are worse than some of the effects of the drugs themselves." I strongly agree that in many cases, the laws produce more harm than the drugs, particularly when we lock up end-users of marijuana.

Meanwhile, the extreme debilitation of millions of Chinese caused by legal and socially-accepted opium smoking in the 19th Century shows that laws are not the sole problem with narcotics. Ultimately, the problem is not the laws but the drugs themselves, in the same sense that guns, and not gun laws, are the real problem when an actual bullet pierces an actual human body.

I say that as someone who lost both a fiance and a best friend to cocaine. As in dead. The drug issue is not black and white, and I stand by my original observation, that drugs bring a lot of misery to those who traffic in them. There are better, cheaper, and more sustainable highs to be gotten in life. I know of almost no evidence that drugs bring any lasting benefit to those who use them regularly. I know of much evidence that they do not.

Peace.

[MarsThe Cat]

21. speaking as a methadone "addict", i have to disagree-

"I know of almost no evidence that drugs bring any lasting benefit to those who use them regularly..."

although you did say "almost"-

I have a medical condition that causes chronic pain, and i use methadone- 70mg daily, as well as 30-40mg of flexeril. it's been that way for the past 7 years, and there's no change in sight. the drugs don't get me "high" though- they just help me feel...fairly normal.
i used to take oxycontin- but had to switch once i lost my health insurance.

[Psephos]

22. We're on the same side of this issue

Instead of saying "drugs" I should have said "abuse of narcotics."

Your use is medicinal. Opiates taken for pain tend to produce minimal highs, much less addiction, and few if any harmful sociological effects. Interestingly, people with ADD who are prescribed low-dose amphetamine-class drugs report a similar experience: no high and no dependency, even over multi-year use.

I'm sorry to hear you have chronic pain, and glad to hear you've found a way to at least partially relieve it. I've spoken at length with a friend who's a cancer doctor about the role of pain-relieving meds, and we both agree that any error in prescription or dosage should be on the side of giving more, not less.

Good luck. May your good days far outnumber your bad days.

Peace.

[slay]

25. I think proper education could solve drug addiction better than "The War

on Drugs". I'm all for education - showing people what will happen to them if they become drug addicts. And for helping them if they do. But ultimately it has to be the person's choice. Making something illegal in and of itself solves nothing and instead creates a whole new list of problems.

[slay]

24. It's "The War on Drugs" that harms everyone involved - dealer, user,grower

Well to start with, everyone involved is freaked out and paranoid because of the illegal nature of the business. The huge amount of money to be made creates drug lords who fight for that money. If "illegal" drugs were a legitimate business, the people involved would compete on the business field through competition the same way companies like Budweiser and Coors do for alcohol. Our government makes so much money on the "War on Drugs" - we catch the "bad guys", take their houses, and their cars, and their money - and put these people in for-profit prisons where John Q Taxpayer can pay to keep them there. Thanks to lobbying by the alcohol industry, which gives their drug a legal monopoly on the market of mind altering substances, the "Drug War" will probably never end. We should never allow the government to tell us what substances we can and can not ingest. Too many people get hurt in this "War on Drugs". I'm so sick of wars.

[BeHereNow]

17. And Americans sell their sons and daughters

to the corporate masters of war to cover the debt
owed due to their insistence to their right to live as mega consumer hedonists.
Any difference?
don't think so-
BHN

[EFerrari]

19. It's prettier when we do it.

[jobycom]

20. The sons and daughters go voluntarily and receive

training, compensation and money. The daughters of these drug dealers are not likely to get any benefits, and are not likely to get out when their tour of duty is done. Don't equate our opulence issues with their poverty issues.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. So Cheney has a couple of new kids?

[JNelson6563]

26. Kinda like Lot in the Old Testament

Seems this is an ageless remedy: Got folks on your back who want something from you really bad? Offer up your daughters.

I believe evolution has stagnated.

Julie

[JNelson6563]

27. dupe

self-delete

[zalinda]

28. I think a lot of people get into drugs because

their life sucks. Now, there are people who do it because they're bored and stupid, but usually they can afford it. Kate Moss comes to mind.

The real problem is the people who's life seems to be one of poverty. They see life as hopeless, they never seem to get ahead. While education could help them, a feeling of not being alone would be better. We all know that more people who are poor smoke and drink more than those who are middle class and above. Why? It always seemed stupid to me, because you are using money for crap that could go to pay the rent. But, when you look at it closer you see that they are using smoking and drinking as a way to escape the drudgery of their every day lives.

Okay, enough already, just legalize the stuff and get it over with. Crime goes down and there is regulation. Do an all out campaign that drugs and alcohol are the only for the stupid, and maybe we'd have a fighting chance.

zalinda