AFGHANNISTAN OCTOBER 2011

Shafiyah, 27, released from prison after three years in jail, poses for a portrait at a shelter run by women for Afghan women in Kabul on October 12, 2011. Shafiyah was arrested and imprisoned after fleeing her Taliban husband who became destitute after the Taliban was ousted. Women's rights in Afghanistan risk being forgotten as international troops withdraw, reports by Oxfam and ActionAid said.

With a per capita GDP of $900, Afghanistan ranks as one of the world's ten poorest countries. By any measure, challenges are numerous. Aid agencies observe an erosion of women's rights as foreign troops prepare to leave, the infant mortality rate is among the world's highest, and despite eradication efforts, 90 percent of the world's opium is still produced by Afghan farmers. Meanwhile, military fatalities approach 2800 since the war began in 2001. Civilians are afforded no such precision for their casualties, with varying estimates in the tens of thousands being the only accounting. Gathered here are images from the country made in October of the lives of women and children, daily life, and consequences of the conflict in Afghanistan and in the United States.


Muttahara Mohammed, 5, attends a class on how to read verses of the Quran in a mosque in Kabul on October 26, 2011.

An Afghan child lies on the ground next to a woman begging for money in a street in Kabul on October 23, 2011.

A burqa-clad Afghan woman holds her baby as she walks in the outskirts of Herat on October 25, 2011

Girls attend a class at a camp for the displaced in Kabul on October 11, 2011. Women's rights have improved in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted, but recent Oxfam data shows women's personal safety, opportunity, and human rights inside the nation are beginning to erode back to conditions that existed previously. Under the Taliban, girls schools had been closed, women were banned from working outside the home, and forced to wear the burqa.

People visit a cemetery outside the Sakhi shrine in Kabul on October 24, 2011.

The Qala Iktyaruddin Citadel in Herat that dates back to Alexander the Great has been restored, a bright sign of progress in a country destroyed by war. The citadel and a new museum was completed by hundreds of local craftsmen with funding and support from the U.S. and German governments and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Boys sit on a grave at a cemetery in Kabul on October 17, 2011.

Laborers have breakfast in their quarters at a coal dump site outside Kabul on October 18, 2011. Each laborer earns ten dollars on an average working day. Most of them come from the northern provinces, leaving their families behind in search of fortune in the capital.

Women walk in a market in Kabul on October 26, 2011.

US soldiers fly on a military plane across Afghanistan on October 8, 2011.

Afghanis look at the site of an explosion in a fuel truck in Parwan province on October 26, 2011. A bomb hidden inside exploded as scores of people gathered to collect fuel that was leaking, killing at least five.

A man mourns his brother, who was killed in a fuel tanker blast in Parwan province on October 26, 2011.

A security man checks the wreckage of a civilian car which was hit by a roadside bomb in Nangarhar province on October 28, 2011, killing two men, a woman and a child.

Aziz Ahmad, 25, who believes he has mental problems, is chained to a wall during his 40-day incarceration at the Mia Ali Baba Shrine in Jalalabad on October 11, 2011. It is believed that 40 days in chains and a diet of bread and water at the 300-year old shrine can cure mentally ill people. Ahmad was chained by the shrine keeper at the request of his family.

A severely wounded US Marine hit by an improvised explosive device is carried by his comrades to a helicopter on October 31, 2011. The Marine lost both his legs and fights for his life.

Donna and Dennis Elm (left) cry during the funeral of their son, Army Spc. Michael Elm, 25, of Phoenix, Ariz., at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. on October 31, 2011. Insurgents attacked his unit in Khowst with an improvised explosive device.

A woman watches the casket of Army Pvt. Danny Chen placed in a hearse in Chinatown on October 13, 2011 in New York. Pvt. Chen, who had been in Afghanistan for two months, was found dead with a gunshot wound below his chin. While preliminary signs suggest Pvt. Chen killed himself, the Army told the soldier's parents he was subjected to taunting and violence by some of the soldiers with whom he served.

The body of Army Spc. Steven E. Gutowski, who died in Afghanistan after an improvised explosive device attack, is carried out of St. Peter's Church in Plymouth following his funeral on October 17, 2011.

An Afghan policeman reacts as a U.S. helicopter lands at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul October 29, 2011. At least four people were killed when a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of foreign soldiers.