Photographer Rafaela Persson has lived in Afghanistan since 2008, and spends time getting to know her subjects.
Persson shares her photographs and stories in an essay at Camera Obscura. Link -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: Rafaela Persson)
I had an idea to photograph female drug addicts. Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium, from which heroin is derived. According to a study made by U.N. Drugs and Crimes Office in 2010, the rate of drug addiction in Afghanistan is twice the global average; Afghans have become the leading consumers of their own opium. Approximately one million Afghans, or eight percent of the war-shattered country’s total population is suffering from drug addiction, a 75 percent increase since 2005. What is even more alarming is that studies show that 50 percent of Afghanistan’s opium-using parents give the drug to their own children.
Persson shares her photographs and stories in an essay at Camera Obscura. Link -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: Rafaela Persson)
In 2007, the US geological society did a survey of the mineral reserves of afghanistan, and estimate that the total reserves are worth "1-2.5 TRILLION dollars"
thats 1,000,000,000,000 to 2,500,000,000,000 worth of wealth in their ground, but, since there is no coastline, no infrastructure, and no stability, they cant even put themselves on their feat.
also, as a side note, what if america helped them build and mine their own country, using our technology and their manpower. we've done it for the last 70 years since WW2 was over in everywhere from south africa to japan and saudi arabia in between. but the sad realization is the modern progressive american liberal would say we are an oppressive empire.
sad, that the policies of freedom and progress are thwarted by those who scream bloody murder for freedom and progress.