"The worst thing to be is an Afghan woman"

When Shabnam was barely more than a child, her father gave her away to pay off a debt.

She was about 13 years old, her husband was in his 50s, and from almost the moment she entered his house he beat her mercilessly, she said.

Shabnam thinks she is about 17 now. She has a plump, heart-shaped face and Cupid's-bow lips. Her hair is covered with a black scarf and she wears a maroon coat-dress with diamante patterns on the collar.

"My father was a very cruel man," she said, sitting in the basement of one of Afghanistan's few shelters for abused and distressed women. More...

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