Although the Americans proposed spraying poppy fields it was rejected because of opposition from the Afghan government

Although the Americans proposed spraying poppy fields, it was rejected because of opposition from the Afghan government.”The government is doing the right thing,” said Mr Isamuddin “According to our religion, opium is prohibited. But if you have to feed your family, you do what you have to do.”If people here cannot earn enough to feed their families, they will start growing opium again.” Although he has not had to take measures as drastic as some farmers in neighbouring Nangahar, his son has had to leave home and go to Iran to find work.At least Mr Isamuddin’s son left voluntarily. Richard Danziger, of the International Organisation for Migrants, says that when poppy farmers in northern Afghanistan have a good crop it means they do not have to sell their children.In Afghanistan’s barren landscape, no other crop brings a return close to that of opium.A French think-tank called last week for the legal cultivation of opium in Afghanistan. For one acre of poppies he can make 150,000 Afghanis (£2,000).

If he sows the same acre with wheat, he makes only 6,000 Afghanis.Mr Isamuddin, 68, says that when the local authorities first started pressuring the farmers to stop growing poppies, the Westerners promised to help them grow alternative crops by providing them with free seed, but they got nothing.Mr Isamuddin gave up growing poppies of his own volition when he heard that the government was going to clamp down. He has given up his poppy crop under pressure from the authorities. Opium cultivation fell by 96 per cent there this year, part of a 21 per cent fall nationwide.But farmers are now coming forward to say that the forced loss of their poppy crop has left them unable to repay debts to drug traffickers who lent them money to buy the seeds.In desperation, they have had to turn to a traditional Afghan practice in which a family can pay off its debt by handing over a daughter to a relative of the creditor. Usually, there is a marriage ceremony for the sake of propriety – but the woman is treated as property.The problem is familiar to Mohamed Hanif Isamuddin from Laghman province, next to Nangahar.

They separated the same day.”Famous or not, rich or poor – sometimes it just ain’t never going to work,” shrugs Krueger.. Afghan farmers prevented from growing poppies under a British-led eradication programme have been forced to hand over their daughters to drug traffickers to settle their debts, according to reports from Afghanistan. The claim is the latest in a series to dog the British effort to curb Afghanistan’s opium industry.
Opium dominates Afghanistan’s economy, accounting for 60 per cent of its income. Critics say the country is turning into a narco-state under the noses of Nato peacekeeping forces, and of the Western governments involved in reconstruction.The latest claims come from Nangahar province, which has been held up by the British, put in charge of the fight against opium in Afghanistan, as their biggest success. Drew Barrymore married Jeremy Thomas, the British owner of a Beverly Hills bar, in March 1994 after a six-week courtship They separated a month later. The model Christie Brinkley married a property developer, Richard Taubman, in December 1994 “We want to be together all the time,” she said When they split six months later Brinkley sued him for £1m. Robin Givens, the television actress formerly married to Mike Tyson, went on to marry her tennis instructor, Svetozar Marinkovic on 22 August 1997.

When she finally agreed to divorce him it cost him $70m.There are no guarantees of marital bliss, even if one partner is unknown and happy to play a supporting role. Some marriages between stars and civilians are over before the confetti hits the ground. Clint Eastwood’s wife Maggie received a $35m settlement in return for the actor’s freedom to be with actress Sondra Locke. Later, Locke, too, successfully sued him for $10m; and when Kevin Costner divorced wife Cindy Silva, his college sweetheart and the mother of his three children in 1994 after a 16-year marriage, it cost him a staggering $80m. Michael Douglas, too, had to pay up to get out of his marriage to his wife Diandra when he wanted to marry Catherine Zeta-Jones. When he later married Ali MacGraw they signed contracts absolving them from divorce settlements.Other stars were not so canny. Pre-nuptial agreements are now routine in Hollywood and while some contain stringent “no pay” clauses, others usually limit the spouse to a certain amount of money – usually $1m (£567,000) – for each year the marriage lasts.One of the first to introduce an “escape clause” was the late Steve McQueen who, when he was divorced from Neile Adams in 1972, found himself facing a $3.5m alimony bill.

It was Cage’s first non-celebrity wedding, having previously been married to the actress Patricia Arquette and Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa-Marie Presley.While they can expect a life of luxury, civilian spouses can no longer expect to walk away from a failed marriage with a massive fortune. Jack Nicholson and Bruce Willis have both had long-running relationships with waitresses, and Nicolas Cage met his third wife, the 20-year-old Alice Kim, when she was a waitress in a Los Angeles sushi restaurant where he and a group of friends were eating They were married in July and she is expecting a baby. They have been married nearly 10 years.So where are the best spots to bag a celebrity if you’re looking for a Hollywood husband or wife? Waitressing is definitely the best bet for women. “He makes me very happy.”Nicolette Sheridan’s fianc?the Swedish-born Nicklas Soderblom, is a fitness instructor. “He handles the fact that I’m famous because of Desperate Housewives remarkably well,” says the British-born actress. “He is very supportive of me and sometimes when we’re skiing he’ll even let me win on the downhill racing course.”Clint Eastwood’s complicated love life included a marriage and divorce from his wife Maggie and romances with several actresses before he met and settled down with a local television news reporter in his hometown of Carmel, California, named Dina Ruiz. “We just like to be at home together, watch a movie or play Scrabble,” she said.