Pubdate: Mon, 03 Oct 2005
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Justin Huggler, in Laghman, Afghanistan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Afghanistan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/opium

OPIUM FARMERS SELL DAUGHTERS TO COVER DEBTS TO TRAFFICKERS

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.

But farmers are now coming forward to say that the forced loss of
their poppy crop has left them unable to repay debts to drug
traffickers who lent them money to buy the seeds.

In desperation, they have had to turn to a traditional Afghan practice
in which a family can pay off its debt by handing over a daughter to a
relative of the creditor. Usually, there is a marriage ceremony for
the sake of propriety - but the woman is treated as property.

The problem is familiar to Mohamed Hanif Isamuddin from Laghman
province, next to Nangahar. He has given up his poppy crop under
pressure from the authorities. For one acre of poppies he can make
150,000 Afghanis (UKP2,000). If he sows the same acre with wheat, he
makes only 6,000 Afghanis.

Mr Isamuddin, 68, says that when the local authorities first started
pressuring the farmers to stop growing poppies, the Westerners
promised to help them grow alternative crops by providing them with
free seed, but they got nothing.

Mr Isamuddin gave up growing poppies of his own volition when he heard
that the government was going to clamp down. But further up the
valley, he says, helicopters sprayed the poppy fields with
insecticide.

The British, put in charge of the effort to curb the opium trade, say
there has been no spraying. Although the Americans proposed spraying
poppy fields, it was rejected because of opposition from the Afghan
government.

"The government is doing the right thing," said Mr Isamuddin.
"According to our religion, opium is prohibited. But if you have to
feed your family, you do what you have to do.

"If people here cannot earn enough to feed their families, they will
start growing opium again." Although he has not had to take measures
as drastic as some farmers in neighbouring Nangahar, his son has had
to leave home and go to Iran to find work.

At least Mr Isamuddin's son left voluntarily. Richard Danziger, of the
International Organisation for Migrants, says that when poppy farmers
in northern Afghanistan have a good crop it means they do not have to
sell their children.

In Afghanistan's barren landscape, no other crop brings a return close
to that of opium.

A French think-tank called last week for the legal cultivation of
opium in Afghanistan. The Senlis Council pointed out the irony that,
while Afghanistan today provides 87 per cent of the world's illegal
opium, legal opium-based medicines are in short supply in Afghanistan
and all over the developing world.

A handful of countries, including Australia, India and Turkey, grow
opium legally for use in medicine under licences granted by the United
Nations.

But drug companies have resisted the production of cheap versions of
their opium-based medicine, according to Jorrit Kamminga of the Senlis
Council.

The group's proposal was that legally grown opium in Afghanistan could
satisfy its domestic medical need, and might even allow it to export
opium for medicinal use. But the proposal was rejected by the Afghan
government after being rubbished by the US and by the UN Office for
Drug Control.

The Afghan government said it could not put in place safeguards to
ensure legally grown opium was not channelled into the black market.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake