"I had to choose between the survival of my four little children and giving Zarghona to marriage," Pashtana told VOA over the phone from the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, where last year her husband, an army soldier, was killed in clashes with then Taliban insurgents.

The young widow made every effort to provide for her children, but there was no job for her under a Taliban regime that has banned work for women.

Arab millionaires are buying preschool girls from Afghanistan as their new wives.