Acknowledgments

This report was written by John Sifton, researcher in the Asia Division, and Zama Coursen-Neff, counsel to the Children's Rights Division.It is based on their research conducted from January through June 2003 in Afghanistan and from New York.Habib Rahiab, a consultant with Human Rights Watch, assisted with the research.Brad Adams, Executive Director of the Asia Division, and Joe Saunders, Deputy Program Director, edited the report.JamesRoss, Senior Legal Advisor, provided legal review.Widney Brown, LaShawn R. Jefferson, Alison Parker, Lois Whitman, and Saman Zia-Zarifi also reviewed the report and provided comments.Ami Evangelista, Liz Weiss, Ramin Pejan, and Josiah Kaplan provided research assistance.John Emerson designed the map.Production assistance was provided by Jonathan Horowitz, Veronica Matushaj, Patrick Minges, Andrea Holley, and Fitzroy Hepkins.

Human Rights Watch would like to thank the Afghan women and men whom we interviewed for this report and who assisted us in our investigation.

We would also like to thank the staff and officials of the non-governmental organizations and U.N. agencies in Afghanistan who have assisted us with our work.Human Rights Watch also thanks Barnett R. Rubin, Patricia Gossman, and Ahmed Rashid for their ongoing assistance.

Our work on Afghanistan has required significant financial resources.We thank the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Stichting Doen, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund for their generous contributions to our emergency work in Afghanistan.