Brides of the drug lords
Afghanistan's opium trade is worth £14 billion a year. But when its dealers are shot or jailed, their daughters are sold as wives to settle their debts
Brides of the drug lords (un-edited version)
By Fariba Nawa Aziza's pale green eyes flashed. Her 12-year-old body shivered. She took two steps back toward the mud wall in the hallway. It was a dead end. "I'm not going! I'm not going!" [...]
Return of the ‘good warlord’
Ismail Khan seeks power in the new Afghanistan
After Ibn Zuhur
By Fariba Nawa October 2003 POZ Before it was trashed amidst the U.S.-led invasion, this hospital outside Baghdad was both protector and prison for HIVers in Saddam’s Iraq. Have they been liberated — only to [...]
Reconstructing justice
By Fariba Nawa July 17, 2003 Mother Jones Clerical Shiite judges have stepped into the power vacuum in Baghdad. What will the new face of justice be in Iraq? Tucked away in an alley in [...]
U.S. curtails Iraq’s newfound media freedoms
By Fariba Nawa June 27, 2003 Village Voice BAGHDAD—The print press is booming here as newspapers rose from five government-run papers during Saddam Hussein's regime to around 150 now. But U.S.-led forces are dampening the [...]
Rumors of abduction frighten Baghdad parents
By Fariba Nawa June 11 - 17, 2003 Village Voice BAGHDAD—Israa Sabah is supposed to be in her seventh-grade classroom finishing her annual exams. Instead, she’s sitting home drawing women’s fashion in her notebook and [...]
My veil, my decision
By Fariba Nawa May 2003 Unpublished Since the all-enveloping burqa began appearing on television during the war in Afghanistan, Americans became curious, even obsessed, with understanding why Muslim women cover their hair and body. Worn [...]
Herat Is Where the Heart Lives
This summer, I went home.
Afghans eager to go home at all costs
Refugees undeterred by crime, ethnic violence, warlords' rivalries
