Zarmina, a beautiful 17-year-old girl, does not have a lot of
things that a child of her age usually takes for granted, such as a
home, family, friends and - hope. It has been a year since she ran
away from human traffickers but the fear that they might find and
catch her still haunts her every night.

When Zarmina was born, her parents decided to escape from the
intensifying conflict in Afghanistan and moved the whole family to
neighbouring Iran. Like many other Afghans in refuge, her father
worked as a daily labourer, barely earning enough to support his
family. Life became even harder when he died of cancer when Zarmina
was seven.

She started weaving carpets with her mother in order to help
make ends meet while trying to go to school when she could. But in
the end, in her third year of primary education, schooling stopped
completely.

Asked if it was hard to work as a child, she says: "It was
difficult at first but I got used to it. I was not in the mood to
play anyway. I was too sad about my father's death."

It was a quiet life with her mother, her father's first wife and
some siblings. "We were so poor and nobody paid attention to us,"
she adds.

The years of drudgery took their toll, especially on her mother
who died when Zarmina was 15. Relations with her step-mother soured
with Zarmina suffering abuse and neglect at her hands.

What little money she earned from carpet weaving was extorted by
her step-mother who then forcibly married Zarmina off for the sum
of US$ 6,000.

Forced marriages are common throughout the country and among the
Afghan diaspora. Women rarely make decisions about their own life
and girls as young as two years old are sometimes committed for
marriage as a way to settle family feuds or debts.

According to the German non-governmental organization, Medica
Mondiale, the majority of females (57 per cent) are married before
the legal age of 16 with up to 80 per cent of marriages being
forced in Afghanistan. Women and girls are often considered to be a
mere commodity and those girls who try to escape such control over
their lives are ostracized by their families for alleged dishonour
and non-respect of Afghan tradition.

Several months after her wedding, Zarmina's 65-year-old husband
brought her back to Afghanistan where they lived as a "normal"
married couple.

That was until one day, when about to leave for a visit to
relatives in Iran, she found some strange powder in her bag.
Suspicious, she asked her husband why he had put a pack of "salt"
in her bag. He explained that it was not salt but heroin and that
he was planning to transport it to Iran using her bag as the police
would not usually search women's  bags.

In recent years, Afghanistan has become the world's main
supplier of illicit opiates, accounting for 93 per cent of world
production in 2007 with gross revenues from its trade being
equivalent to nearly half of the country's Gross Domestic Product
(GDP). The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that between 70
and 90 per cent of the heroin found in Europe has been processed
from Afghan opiates mostly smuggled through Iran or Pakistan.

That breadth and depth of drug trafficking experience has now
spilled over into human trafficking. Well-established networks are
now certainly linked to human trafficking beyond Afghanistan's
borders.

Afraid that Zarmina might run away and report him to the police,
her husband and her brother-in-law locked her up in the house for
the next five months.  With clients brought to the house, she
was forced into prostitution. Her husband told her she had to pay
back her debt to him for the money he had paid to marry her. Every
time she tried to resist, they beat her, cut her with a knife and
threatened to kill her unless she obeyed.

Fed up with her "disobedience" one day, her brother-in-law went
to fetch his Kalashnikov. As he stepped out of the house, Zarmina
seized the moment to escape in a split second decision. A
sympathetic neighbour referred her to the Ministry of Women's
Affairs which took her under its custody and which has sheltered
her since then.

Human trafficking is a crime that can impair a victim's
personality and even destroy a life. As a source, transit and
destination country, Afghanistan is no stranger to the phenomenon.
According to a recently published IOM survey on human trafficking
in the country, numerous factors are making Afghans extremely
vulnerable to the crime such as the continuing personal and
economic insecurity that decades of conflict have wrought, and with
it, the subsequent loss of lives and livelihoods.

There are additional factors such as the common occurrence of
violence against women, including forced marriage, that render
women particularly vulnerable. Children are another large pool of
potential "targets" for trafficking with widespread poverty
compelling up to one third of Afghan children to work.

Sadly for Zarmina, all these factors came into play in her
story.  But the real tragedy is that Zarmina's experiences
aren't an exception. Traffickers ruthlessly exploit countless other
people just like Zarmina, violating their basic human rights in the
full knowledge that this modern-day form of slavery is largely
thriving with impunity.

Building on five years of counter-trafficking experience in
Afghanistan, IOM currently carries out activities addressing all
aspects of prevention, protection and prosecution, with generous
contributions from the governments of Italy and the USA. IOM seeks
to reduce the exposure of vulnerable people, particularly minors,
to the risks of human trafficking and to contribute to the Afghan
government's efforts to strengthen their counter-trafficking
response.

Successful cooperation with the government has recently led to
the enactment of Afghanistan's first counter-trafficking
legislation, the Law on Combating Kidnapping and Human Trafficking,
on 14 July. IOM worked closely with members of the Legislation
Department at the Ministry of Justice in drafting the law and
provided necessary technical advice through weekly meetings and a
series of training activities.

Under the victim assistance component of IOM's
counter-trafficking programme, both foreign nationals trafficked to
Afghanistan as well as Afghan victims of internal and cross-border
trafficking are identified through IOM's referral network. 
They are assisted through the provision of daily necessities such
as clothing and food, medical and psychological support as well as
reintegration assistance where appropriate. IOM has assisted over
130 victims of trafficking since 2006.

Zarmina is now among those being helped by IOM. After a long
silence, she has finally started sharing her experience with the
others. Scars are still visible on her hands and perhaps also on
many other parts of her body that are covered under clothing.
Slipping off her head scarf, Zarmina says: "Look at my short hair.
When he got mad, he shaved my head completely. Back then I had no
hair at all."

Her lack of education, family and home rests heavy on her heart
and gives her little hope for the years ahead. When asked about her
dream, Zarmina pauses for a while and answers, "When I try to think
of myself, I just see no future."

IOM is currently providing her with much-needed counseling.
After that, it will help her the best it can to give her the chance
to finally really begin living.