The girl is now 13, and her features have just sharpened into striking beauty. She is the breadwinner in her family of She does not know what a condom is. She has not heard of AIDS.
The Associated Press learned her story in a dozen meetings over four months, as well as interviews with police and aid workers. But in March, she confessed to having anal sex with men for years, starting with the legless beggar. She looked down as she spoke, her face and hands sooty from car exhaust.
She tucked her hair repeatedly under her headscarf. The girl grew up in Pakistan, where her family fled during a bloody civil war in Afghanistan in the early s. She cleaned cars for money. Five years ago, her family and a flood of other refugees returned to Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime.
So she sold chewing gum and newspapers and cleaned car windows in the muddy, potholed streets of Kabul. That was where she met Uncle Lang, a nickname that literally means Uncle Legless.
Uncle Lang was a land mine victim. When the girl and a friend brought him tea and food, he forced himself upon them, police say.
