Afghan peasants bear the brunt of curbs on opium
By Rachel Morarjee
Financial Times, UK
05/10/06
Esther is only 13 and she does not want to get married, but her fiancé is anxious to tie the knot.
He is a 70-year-old drug baron who will claim the girl in lieu of a $2,000 debt her family amassed when their opium harvest failed.
"We don't have any choice. If the money-lender wants our land, our daughters, we have to do whatever makes him happy," says 65-year-old Abdul Satar, tears welling up in his eyes.
Mr Satar's harvest was wiped out by a freak hailstorm rather than US-backed counter-narcotics forces, but his predicament highlights how impoverished farmers bear the brunt of the war on drugs.
Financial Times, UK
05/10/06
Esther is only 13 and she does not want to get married, but her fiancé is anxious to tie the knot.
He is a 70-year-old drug baron who will claim the girl in lieu of a $2,000 debt her family amassed when their opium harvest failed.
"We don't have any choice. If the money-lender wants our land, our daughters, we have to do whatever makes him happy," says 65-year-old Abdul Satar, tears welling up in his eyes.
Mr Satar's harvest was wiped out by a freak hailstorm rather than US-backed counter-narcotics forces, but his predicament highlights how impoverished farmers bear the brunt of the war on drugs.
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