Khalida′s fathersays she′s 9-or maybe 10. As much as Sayed Shah loves his 10 children, thefunctionally illiterate Afghan farmer can′t keep track of all their birthdates. Khalida huddles at his side, trying to hide beneath her chador andheadscarf. They both know the family can′t keep her much longer. Khalida′sfather has spent much of his life raising opium, as men like him have beendoing for decades in the stony hillsides of eastern Afghanistan and on thedusty southern plains. It′s the only reliable cash crop most of those farmersever 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 mydaughter," says Shah. The family′ s heartbreak began when shah borrowed$2000 from a local trafficker, promising to repay the loan with 24 kilos ofopium at harvest time. Late last spring, just before harvest, a governmentcrop-eradication team appeared at the family′s little plot of land in Laghmanprovince and destroyed Shah′s entire two and a half acres of poppies. Unable tomeet his debt, Shah fled with his family to Jalalabad, the capital ofneighboring Nangarhar province. The trafficker found them anyway and demandedhis opium. So Shah took his case before a tribal council in Laghman and beggedfor leniency. Instead, the elders unanimously ruled that Shah would have toreimburse the trafficker by giving Khalida to him in marriage. Now the familycan only wait for the 45-year-olddrugrunner to come back for his prize. Khalidawanted to be a teacher someday, but that has become impossible. "It′s myfate," the child says.

Afhans disparaginglycall them "loan brides"--daughters given in marriage by fathers whohave no other way out of debt. The practice began with the dowry a bridegroom′sfamily traditionally pays to the bride′s father in tribal Pashtun society.These days the amount ranges from$3,000 or so in poorer places like L

• A.traffickers canmake great money from the poppies
• B.poppies are morereliable and suitable to grow in this place
• C.no governmentfunded credit was offered for small farmers
• D.growing poppiescan earn more money than other crops