Article from CNN

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/international/2013/01/25/amanpour-afghanistan-daughters-debt.cnn

January 25th, 2013

02:56 PM ET

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By Samuel Burke, CNN

The mother of a little Afghan girl cannot even turn to face her daughter. She looks down in shame as she explains why she must hand the girl over to drug lords.
The father of the girl has done what many Afghan farmers must do to finance their opium farms: borrow money from drug traffickers. But the Afghan government and international forces’ attempt to halt the opium trade has quashed the father’s poppy business, and with it, his ability to pay back the lenders.
The drug lords have taken him hostage to extract a payment.
“I have to give my daughter to release my husband,” the mother explains with the girl at her side. She looks no older than six.
Ninety percent of the world's opium – the raw source of heroin – comes from Afghanistan. Growing poppy there has been a lucrative industry.
The Afghan government has been cracking down and destroying illegal crops, leaving many farmers in the same horrifying situation as the family forced to use their own daughter as collateral for the loan.
“They’re way more dangerous and powerful than the Taliban,” one father of two kidnapped children says about the drug lords. He looks at a text messaged picture of his daughter being held in captivity as the captors demand $20,000 from the man over the telephone.
These tragic stories are documented in PBS’ award-winning Frontline film, "Opium Brides,” which was made by investigative Afghan reporter Najibullah Quraishi and producer Jamie Doran.
Quraishi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that when the families give up their children, they are often taken to other countries, like Pakistan or Iran, where they are used for transporting drugs or put into sex slavery.
The film traces another story of an ill-fated Afghan farmer. “It just seemed too awful to be true,” producer Jamie Doran told Amanpour about that man’s plight. “[He] couldn't pay the traffickers back and refused to give his daughter away. And we actually have the entire film of him being beheaded with a penknife. That's what they do if you refuse to hand over your daughters.”
The reporter behind the film says the government is aware that it is destroying families’ lives along with their crops, but policymakers have yet to come up with a solution to safeguard the farmers’ families while trying to end the opium trade.
One little girl who was lucky enough to escape her captors recounts just how horrible the conditions were. “They wouldn't allow me to change my clothes. They wouldn't give me soap to wash them. My clothes became worn out on my body. They did every possible cruelty to me. I really fear that those smugglers will take me again.”
Even if the girls do escape, they often have nowhere to go while they search for their families. The filmmakers did find one halfway house, but it was only enough for about 30 girls.
The filmmakers believe there are many hundreds, if not thousands of girls on the run from the traffickers.
“The role of NATO and the United Nations is fascinating in this situation,” Doran said. “The U.N. and NATO ISAF will tell you it's not their responsibility nor do they advocate the destruction – the eradication of the poppy. But they supply the protection for the police to actually do it. So they're saying on one hand, 'we have nothing to do with this.' But the Afghan police couldn't do without NATO support.”
But Doran points out that the root of the problem is the opium drug users. “I don't know if there's a solution because the world demands poppy cultivation for its heroin addiction. So you know, maybe the blame shouldn't just be put onto the Afghan government. Maybe we should be looking inside ourselves a little more,” Qaurishi said.
The looming fear is that this horrendous situation could worsen when international troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.

Re-Post from my own blog.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

The Metaphor for Life

I've been doing Bikram Yoga for about 5 years now. Bikram Yoga is a form of hatha yoga which is practiced in a heated room with a temperature somewhere between 105-111 degrees. There are 26 asanas (postures) and the class lasts for an hour an a half. I fell in love with doing yoga from the moment I started. Today I followed my Sunday ritual and went to the 10am class. When I got to the class, I was truly grateful for being there. I said my silent prayer of gratitude and asked God to guide me and help me in whatever struggles I may encounter in the class and in life as a whole.
The class today seemed hotter than usual to me. I struggled through the last 1/2 hour of the class and tried to push myself as much as I could. At some points during the class I became antsy and I felt like screaming because I was panicking inside. It was a very weird feeling for me. So I tried to gather my thoughts and had to talk myself into becoming calm again. One of my favorite poses is the ustrasana/camel pose. This pose can be very difficult for people and has been known to provide an emotional release for individuals during the class. Many people cry and often have inexplicable feelings during this pose. I have to be honest and say that before I did this pose, I hesitated a little. I didn't know if I could handle it. So I said I would try the first set and I did. I went into my pose and when I expected that I was going to break my posture, I kept pushing back until I got it. That one time took so much out of me that I could not do the second set but oddly enough I was pleased with myself for managing to do the first one. After this effort, the class was almost over and I made it through.
In the locker area, some participants will sit by the water cooler to compose themselves. I took my usual seat on the wooden floor and tried again to gather myself. One by one people came into the room and began to talk. They were all saying that they felt as though the class was more difficult this time. One lady who was sitting next to me stated that she felt herself becoming anxious inside during the last part of the class. Thank God! Just when I began to feel as if I was going crazy, someone confirmed that I wasn't. It seemed that all of us were feeling the same emotions inside but we kept pushing just to get through. That's when I truly realized that yoga is a metaphor for life.
In life, we all get to points where we are exhausted and even driven to the point of tears. We all have to make the decision to either push through it or give up. As with some of the poses, that's what has to happen in yoga. Some poses in yoga I love to do and some I absolutely despise. The same with life. There are some experiences that I love and some that I don't like at all. In both areas of my life, I choose to fight through them despite what the outcome may be. There are times when I think I am going to pass out in yoga class (literally) but I don't. There are times in life when I feel that I am going to pass out from exhaustion, but I don't. The good thing is that I keep going back to yoga class because of the way I feel after the experience not during it. Unfortunately, when this life is over, I can't choose to come back to this experience because I liked it so much. So i have no choice but to enjoy it now, which I do. I have to remember to keep pushing through the hard times and when they are over, I will feel better and renewed. What I also realized is that during class there are some people who have great strength and flexibility in their poses and there are others who have to still try very hard to manipulate their bodies to get into certain postures. In the end when we were talking, we all experienced the same feelings but we didn't even know it. We are all different in some ways but we are more alike in others. The commonality is that we all kept pushing.
I am somewhere in the middle with my yoga practice. In some areas I am strong and in some areas I am weak. All I know is that I will keep trying my postures until I get them the right way and how I want them. This same philosophy applies to my life as well.

Seven Weeks In and Counting...

This blog has been named Seven Weeks In because that is when my emotional breakdown occurred during my first semester in Penn's DSW program. I consider myself to be a strong person in many ways but at that point, I couldn't take it anymore. The readings, the papers, work, my cycle and some other variables thrown in there all combined to make a very interesting drive home after class in week 7. I'm surprised I could see the highway through all of my tears. I consulted with many friends and colleagues who have obtained their doctorates in various areas of study and they all told me that it was inevitable that this would happen to me. Of course, I didn't believe them. I'm organized, I keep a calendar of tasks that I need to accomplish in my personal life and school, I love life and I'm a generally happy person so the fact that I was sobbing uncontrollably actually took me by surprise. Am I ashamed to admit it? Yes and no but I won't go into my reasons.

Anyway, I would like for this blog to be a place where the 2012 cohort can come to express their ideas, share personal info and stories or just shoot the breeze with each other. It is hard to keep in constant contact with people that you only see once a week so hopefully this will open the lines of communication. If it doesn't then I just created a fun play area for myself. :)  Hope you all enjoy it and good luck with next semester. I will post things that I find to be of interest to me. I hope you all will jump in and do the same. Thanks!

P.S. Don't expect the grammar on this blog to be written according to the APA publication manual. If that's what you expect than you should just close your browser now. Toodles.