why? nelson rockefeller never got over franklin roosevelt. there is a warmly inscribed picture of fdr in his office. he told someone he was a very great man and he explained how he understood his roosevelt had understood you have to be a people of hope. there are inequities. you have to be willing in a proactive way to identify and address those inequities. you have to be a reformer. that is the height of republicanism. he was running against the ghost of franklin roosevelt and his closest adviser explained it was fdr who is the president. he could never quite imagined

himself. for all of his apparent self-confidence, all this enthusiasm, all of his resources and talent and accomplishment there was something in him that help back from identifying -- not identifying with fdr, but equalizing himself to fdr. >> after hearing that how could you not want to read? [applause] thank you all. thank you to everyone in the audience as well. [applause]

>> journalists have to in suki kim discuss their books. >> thank you so much for coming. i want to read a piece of my book, which centers around a conversation with two adult women who were a voice in afghanistan who have continued to live as adult posing as men in afghanistan.

when i asked afghan to describe to me the difference between men and women, over the years, interesting responses came back. while afghan men often begin to describe women as more sensitive caring and less physically capable than men, afghan women tend to offer up only one difference. i want to take a second i get that one difference may be. here is the answer. regardless of who they are whether they are rich or poor educated, afghan women often describe the difference between men and women in just one word freda. i say men have it, women do not. shaw had says the same thing when i asked her no one is the bias of your life is how she describes it. so there's less of a difference

between men and women i asked? they look at each other again and then back at me. they don't know. but then she changes her mind telling me not to bother her. she doesn't want to hear it. we are nothing. who would be nothing in the west, too. shaw had is more hopeful, inspired by snippets of information from her american trainers in the paramilitary unit. i've heard people don't care what you are or how you look in the west. not exactly true. our definition of freedom may be different in changes of each generation. the current war in afghanistan is named operation enduring freedom. to indicate something worth fighting a 13 year war over. freedom as we know it today is yet another evolutionary luxury. american author robin morgan says when i later how her

gender and freedom ideas. it's all in how we choose to define those ideas. the afghan women i have met sometimes with little education and a lifetime of it. i've been counted as less than a full human beings have a distinct view of what exactly freedom is. too bad, freedom is to avoid an unwanted marriage and to be able to leave the house. it would be to have some control over one's own body and to have a choice of wine and how to become pregnant or to study and have a profession. that is how they would define freedom. as we arrived on another day three of her sisters are visiting under each of their workers are indian style saris. red, yellow and purple sister gather with their 11 children between the kitchen.

the toddlers crawl back and forth across the floor where we sit barefoot, our sandals piled up in the corner by the door. i would not be able to stand it about the abundance of nephews and nieces. i am lucky not to be have to be pregnant all the time and have one after the other. a fire were a woman here, that would be my entire life. they were framed by long curly black hair. one sister lance forward as she attempts to explain to me. do you understand that it is the wish of every afghan woman to have been born a man, to be free? the other two sisters agree. if it had been their choice, they would've been born a man. that is why other women turn on her sometimes. she does not play by the rules to which they are all subjected.

neither wants to be their government. not like us with our husbands and the government always. to make me understand why some continue to live as men in afghanistan with a reach adulthood and other sister asked me a question that is simple to answer. if you could walk out the door right now is a man or staying here forever as a woman, what would you choose? she is right. who would not walk out the door in disguise if the alternative was to live as a prisoner or slave. who would really care about the absurd skirts, feminine or masculine if renouncing one's gender gave access to the world. so much for the mysteries of gender or the right of one realization. a great many people in the world may be willing to throw out their gender if it could be traded for freedom.

the real story of nod or another women who live as men in afghanistan may not be so much about how they break gender norms are what they have become by doing that. rather, it is about this. between gender and freedom freedom is the bigger and more important idea in afghanistan as well as globally. defining one's gender comes to term only after gender is achieved. then a person can begin to fill the word with new meaning. freedom is also what the sisters want to question me on. what does a western woman do with all that illicit freedom to hear about? after they whisper for a day one turns to me. you can do anything you want and come to afghanistan. is that the war? we always had the war. more of a statement than a question and the other sisters are with her.

it's very strange for a moment to come to afghanistan by choice if she could be anywhere in the world. it's strange of my father to allow what they think. this is what you do with your life? sister continues. don't you want the family to have children? sheep looked a little concerned. she should not wait to want to get married. you will be too old to have children. i may be too old already i say. all three sisters look around before one speaks again with the question they wanted answered you. and what is the purpose of your life as a woman? unitas well been born a man says another. what is there now to make you a woman? you have your freedom. you can walk out when you want but we also feel sad for you.

we know our sister is a side issue of being a man. she looks embarrassed and perhaps irritated. a toddler with piercings in one year has wallowed up to her maneuvered herself. her face changes and she adjusts her position on the floor to hold hernias with both hands. she wins her head down to inhale the scent of the girls hair she closes her eyes for a moment. i've told them to save one for me she says to me tilting her head. they have so many. we can pretend one of them is mine. her sisters not. they can all agree on that. when we maneuver through couple is outer neighborhood she suddenly had an announcement. i will take you to my boys.

and of course we want to me the boys. she talks us their phone from the front seat. we stick our heads together to see what she wants to show us and they are in the middle of a tiny cell phone shut her arms around the shoulders of two teenagers, both dressed in suits with thick hair, the girls have become spaces with soft features and defiant eyes. they are not trying to be cute nor do they look down like most afghans. they are all winning. not her turns around to see reactions. she tells us they are her protégés. she has no children, but she's already begun to build her legacy. they are her boys in training to become the next generation of

refusers. [applause] down -- [inaudible conversations] >> well, okay. i will ask you one question. maybe you can just start by explaining what it is.

>> you have either a son or a daughter or you have a daughter dressed like a son. it is almost like a third gender they are. you cut off the hair of the daughter and put her in pants and a shirt and she will look like a boy to the outside world. >> so what will continue with this? [applause] >> hi, sorry i am behind. i will read a section, a little section of the book. it comes towards the end of the book actually.

here we go. this is the premise is that i spend six months in north korea teaching the sons of the of the. i was always trying to i guess implement some western concept into the lesson. i say with a must read it among my students that all they were stressed about having the right ones because it would you support in calculating the final grade. they were supposed to come up with their own topic and outline when i asked him what was going and. i emphasize the importance that is importance that a scientist would want to write papers to approve the theories appeared in reality, nothing was ever proven on the world. aspirate without the land of the great leader. the writing is cursed bard like they are skills.

writing lesson unless none of which was never verified. the concept of backing up a claim evidence. a quick look at the articles of the paper revealed the exact same tone from start to finish this later progression or pacing. there was no beginning and no hand. so the basic beliefs of the five paragraph essay was the thesis introduction coming body paragraph with details and the conclusion was entirely foreign to them. the idea that they have the most difficulty presenting was the introduction. i told them i was like waving hello. how do you say hello and interesting ways that the reader is hooked? i've offered any examples, but they show up during office hours shaking their heads and asking what is that clicks it goes on and on but we skipped around a little bit.

i am trying to read little sections on one chapter. instead of a lesson on sources, which is not possible here as that they read a sample essay from 1997 with bill clinton and how import was to make a wired. i got it approved by the counterparts, the people of the north korean staff to look overall are lesson plans. because it related to her current textbook theme of college education. i hope they would see how behind they were. i gave them four articles in "the new york times," the "financial times" in harvard magazine that mentioned facebook, twitter. none of the pieces evoke a response. not even the sentence above zetterberg earning $100 billion in something he dreamed up in his college dorm seem to

interest them. it was possible they feel they're reading lies. perhaps the capitalist angle without them. the next day students stop by during office hours. they all wanted to change their essay topics. the new topics they proposed all have to do with the ao of american society. he wanted to read about corporate punishment in america in japanese middle schools. another argued the american government of deciding a baby's future based on i.q. tie should be forbidden. a third studio bonnet to read about the evils of allowing people to own guns so freely in america. a fourth didn't say biofuel is toxic in america was the biggest producer of it. a fifth one could change the topic to divorce. there was no divorce in the dprk. in america, the rate was more than 50% and it led to decline in mental according to him.

so what happens when people are unhappy hereafter be married for a while i asked? the student look at me blankly. still another student wanting to write about the same student then asked me what kind of food the farmers make. one student asked me which country could use the most computer hackers? it was america. the questions came to me, especially since i is the name you id. about cybercrime by north korea. instead i told him computer crimes could be committed anywhere by anyone. it would be hard to pinpoint one country as a source. when the sentences came in i saw one student had written despite the harm of nuclear weapons some countries such as the united states to develop nuclear weapons. he had no idea that north korea's development was an international concern.

another was an impossible problem to solve, especially in africa and even the countries in america conservation problems. another chose a topic of money and how it made societies do unethical things. one thing was clear. their collective decision to condemn america to be compelled by the articles. but i have intended as inspirational a message viewed and felt slighted. the nationality and still remember so many generation was so fragile that they were used to acknowledge the rest of the world. the experts expand their awareness kept backfiring. the annual making of kimchi tradition that koreans have.

we went to self righteous tyrants almost half the students claimed the most famous in the world and all other nations were envious of it. one student put at the american government had named the official food of the 1996. when i questioned him, he said everybody had proven textbook said so. a quick internet search revealed that a japanese manufacturer had claimed that the japanese dish was an olympic food had been denied. some hide the items relate them and was not treated as genuine knowledge. i correct my students on each bit of misinformation was taxing and sound in dangerous territory. another teacher said no way. don't touch that.

you cannot tell them not to lie. after several lessons, a student said to me at dinner, an interesting thing happened when her science class this afternoon. the north korean foundation of philosophy. and they took this class basically to study the great leader they took a class every day. they never volunteered information so i listen to intend play. the student continued here and we had to write an essay. they normally wrote in kirby and i had never thought of them before. and now we did. what was so strange i asked? i don't know he said causing thoughtfully. i vote that it and realized it was different now. writing english and write and korean are different.

but that is also the same. i kept thinking of the essay structure as i was writing it and it made me feel strange. i did not question them further. i thought i understood. it must have been deeply confusing to approach the writing i've been essay. in the country there is no proof, no checks and balances unless of course they wanted to prove the great leader has single-handedly with thousands of books saved the nation with a miraculous number of things. certain systems designed not to be questioned and to squash critical thinking so the form of an essay in which the thesis to be proven was antithetical to the entire system. the writer of nsa acknowledged the argument opposing species and refuse them here and the opposition was not an option. i stared at him and felt a familiar sick feeling. perhaps this is only the

beginning. the questions they would have come of the questions they should be asking the questions i would realize they had not been asking because they did not imagine they could or because asking meant that they could no longer exist and nurses done. [applause] >> cnn says i should state here. >> well, it is such a privilege to be here with these two fantastic writers as they venture is too has gone to the far ends of the earth and come back with such fascinating stories. i read both of these books don't think they were a mystery story or volumes of the game of thrones series. they were so fascinating. i have learned so much.

i recently structured my questions and my question is questions and i question you separately but now we are together. i want to ask you a few questions about your book cements the questions relevant to both of you about your writing crack isn't being a reporter. so afghanistan has been called the worst place in the world to be a one man. but all we see are in our media is how much better things are getting. girls are in school. women starting a small business is in breaking out of the confines of their home. is it still the worst place to be a woman? >> i think there certainly other quarrels to be a woman. in terms of being one of the most conservative countries on earth, where there is utter poverty, women have very few rights. only men can inherit property.

there is rampant domestic violence. yes, it is still true. there has been modest progress mostly concentrated to the urban areas such as kabul, iraq where women have enabled us to get out of the house, get an education relatively more liberal. according to the human rights organizations and the people who work on the ground there and what i also observed in the last five years travel to the more rural areas. things are very much the same following traditions that have been around for a very long time regardless of what regime in kabul. so after the taliban you think many of the restrictions on women. let's go back to the culture

where women should be pure and protected and sheltered. they remain in place. as i've read for my book women cannot decide anything over their own body when they get pregnant who they get married to, whether they leave the house essentially. that is the story at the story we want to hear is how great everything has become and there's certainly been progress that is modest and easily reversible. >> you talk towards the end of the book about how billions and billions of dollars worth of international aid have been sprinkled all over the country producing very little effect except to create a class as an elite to get a hold of the money. then you say something very

interesting, which is because women's rights have been promoted in this way through this international aid staff, that nowadays identifying with the new elite and with the west. so, does that suggest to you you know whatever will be dismantled when they leave? >> i wouldn't have her distance and he asked her to help and make things better. the thing of foreign aid is does it get there first of all? it is the number one corrupt country in the world. a big story that was told about how we were to liberate the

women there. much money was put into gender projects. also webster structure and all of that. but it was also a specific as bringing women from their home in developing education. again unfortunately we see this in our industry as well. we have power and money want to hold onto that very badly and they will make any excuse to say that women's rights and women's education, for instance is foreign. it's an infidel all those things. these are arguments that have been used by the conservatives in society. sometimes they haven't been carried out very well either. this is a consequence of coming

in also to teach another coaster and human rights. what i also read to you was about how we are supposedly the most equal society on earth. so i come in and ask questions about gender, but instead i've been taught about gender. where afghans many time have a more fluid view of what gender is. so when we come in the ministry and i quote women in parliaments and we try and explain this to men and women and say we are going to empower you, many times there's also reluctant to buy our version of that and we let them with foreign aid as opposed version of what it should be. society has changed and will

keep changing, but it's also difficult to come in and provoke women's rights when there are no roads to travel on and why does that then become such a priority for the foreigners that can sometimes also be a provocation. what is it with you and women's rights? we have some of this center in history as well but very controversial. >> yeah. i want to just get back to the post for a minute because it is a fascinating example of what you are talking about. on one hand they have an incredibly rigid gender structure. but then there's this little bridge that you can cross if you are the right kind of little

girl and you accept having turning a growth into a boy for so many different purposes because maybe you could just tell us about that. i was very struck by that what a useful thing this was that the boy can run errands. the boy can work in the store. the boy can accompany his sisters and also the fascinating thing you stress this a lot, how important it is to have almost a magical way of encouraging the next baby to be a boy and you actually find a doctor who seems to fit seems to visit and please do not. so could you talk a little bit about that?

how -- tell us a little bit more but the social role and our works in the family. >> sure when you have an extremely segregated goal society men and women do different names. they are a different species. they look different. men can inherit property. they support the family. women are inside the house. women are told that their brains are weak. so if they study, for instance, many women are told this. it is dangerous for women to be educated. these are some of the uneducated truths to go around in afghanistan. so this thing has been the irony of that i suppose when you have

such a rigid system people think of creative ways to get around that. one such way is if you don't have a son in the family but you have daughters coming you will simply make one into a son to the outside world. it's not so much about actually fooling anyone. it's more of a disguise come a practical way of coping with this very dysfunctional system. so then it will raise the status of the family because others will see a son. without a son it is very weak. no one to inherit you, no one to carry on the family name. both men and women if they don't have a son they are shamed in society. and then having it made death can provide an economic advantage for the family and you

can send the child to work as a boy. this could be child labor, which is certainly not something about freedom. another reason could be to give the grown education if you live in a dangerous area and you can travel to school, for instance it might be easier to pass as a boy. there is also that component of manifestation what we think of as the secret almost. that will encourage the woman to give birth to a son max. so they may not give it through their own child, but is sort of a "don't ask don't tell" where you have a son or daughter. sometimes you have several and it's something largely accepted about children. not so much when they then reach. >> you have several examples of women who refuse to be girls.

>> guest: growing up in a gender you know you can move around, play outside climb trees. girls, the whole culture of honor comes down to this idea that a girl needs to be purer and groomed for her future marriage. so then you know she cannot be near other boys. you have to keep her inside and restrained and having them on the other side of that and many times these girls don't know what other girls do how they live. they just know that they can't be outside much. when i met her teenager in the book for the first time she said i see how women are treated here. by what i want to be one of

them? so if you push it too far. >> well it's a really fascinating look and we are spelling it out there along with the other books. i really recommend to everybody. suki, i want to ask you a couple questions if i might. one thing i didn't quite understand from your boat is how you got to teach this technical college run by evangelical christians were everyone was an evangelical christian radio. how did they come to think that you were one of them. >> it was sunday and by evangelical christians. but they were running i guess a system of schools similarly.

i just applied for a job and when i found out i was covering in pyongyang in 2008 for harper's magazine. amazingly, i got an interview and they didn't ask about my faith. so i think it was sort of assumed. and then i felt my right hand past might get in the way. i told the president of the school that i was a novelist. and he seemed okay with it. and then i was in pyongyang. i went for years. so once i got there i basically kept my mouth shut. no one asked me about my faith and i never explained. >> there was a fascinating strand in the book in which you

are living under a kind of dual self-censorship. you have to be very, very careful not to reveal any information about the west that would undermine the world's view of your students, like what the internet is for examples. i was really fascinating that they had a kind of internet where they could download certain kinds of information like a dictionary on their computers than they would know there is the internet. >> there's a lot of kind of everyone undercover in a way. the korean government knew who they were. the deal they made for rebuilding the school was to

have a different breed of missionaries and the ones you got detained wednesday or. that's very different. this is the invitation of the north korean government. there was even a secret rumor they did once a week. they did bible studies. the students didn't know what the internet was. the teachers had it. but they have a thing called intranet. it is like what they have a library of information. so we had done things we were not allowed to discuss. many of the things we just could not reveal. telling them about the internet would be one of them. so you basically don't say things. >> but what was also fascinating was why you are having to

withhold all this information from your students, you also have to pretend that your colleagues were a little worried when they thought you didn't have enough faith. there is a funny incident where the counterpart, who was a korean staff said it was okay for you to show one of the harry potter movies to your students and your colleagues have said that his witchcraft. so it must've been a real challenge to you to have to preserve both those worlds separately and together in yourself in relation to both of them. >> and not asked back under the permission of the north korean

government for the missionaries. there is no way i could've written a book without permission. when it has been given with the north korean regime. so you walk out with the korean agenda. so the only way i think after the third time i realized i could only have read about the place if i were to be embedded. so, the school to provide that opportunity to get to know the students. but it did, without price. >> you know the book is incredibly personal. but i am really personal and not was by choice because i needed to humanize north korea.

we don't have any, any story out of north korea. so the reports from inside north korea but the propaganda, you can't really see anything. so you know, this game a chance for the north korean students. none of us were ever allowed out. so months and months of that or what they really think in the way was really important to have that personalized culture that they stop being the sort of archetypes. >> and you'd let your students. >> i so loved them. >> you are so caring and

maternal for them and they are grateful for your affection and concern. >> i mean why students love what is possible. first of all we were locked up in the air. we didn't have anything and they didn't have anything to the really. so most of them were dog and innocent. they were their 20s but they could have been saddened because they didn't know the outside world. they knew nothing. >> is the much younger than american kids. >> absolutely. they were like children in any way. there were also young men. some said the elite. the most of the most eligible bachelors of north korea. these were the young men. i was thinking b. mayer, they

lie about everything. and yet they were so honest. you see such a paradox. it was so sincere, but really corrupt. i realized why. that is what was really, really confusing about being mayor because it was said she. we all ate every meal together. because the counterparts were more than one like one student would not be they are. how would say what happened to him. immediately they would say the answers but at the same time. is it a stomach ache or a haircut? p. had a stomach ache but then went to get a haircut.

[laughter] .. but then there were levels of lies. because everything about the great leader is a lie. but then because the allies are so rampant they are easy but they are innocent. "this is it" is like human is constantly in question. >> i got the message we need to open to questions there are a lot of them out there.

let's do that. >> hello. testing? >> i teach here so really welcome. i've done work in cuba, and i've sometimes used a strategy it's better to ask forgiveness afterwards than permission beforehand right? so my question is about methodology. i'm a sociologist, and, you know with i'm wondering from both of you, could you speak a little bit more about your methodology in doing this work in a country

and then presenting that work to an english-speaking audience because you said before about don't ask, don't tell, but you guys were asking and now you're telling, right? you were asking lots of questions about somewhat taboo subjects, and now you're sharing that later. and so method logically and even ethically, how did you and how do you deal with that in your work? thank you. so how do you deal with that in your work? q. >> it is difficult as a journalist. i just ducked to the basic core of driving one no one.

and then i wrote the newspaper piece. many times it is the reverse negotiations maybe we should talk about this. you know, i don't want to expose you, so i was trying to get her to take the story back. she said no i think we should tell it as it is, this could be interesting to people. and i said are you sure? she said, yeah. so we had many versions of that conversation, we should disclose this or do we want to protect the family more and maybe not divulge all these details, and many times the things that i thought were controversial or potentially damning, they did not mind. so it was also cultural issues many times i would say do you want to talk about i how your husband beat you? -- do you want

to talk about how your husband beat you? yes, because everyone was beaten by their husband here. but you cannot write about menstruation, for instance. so, because that was a taboo. so i kept in touch with all my subjects, and i'm still in touch with them, and once i had a finished manuscript, i went back to kabul and i went over it with them so they, again could make the decision on appearing in the book and knowing exactly what was written about them about their families. sometimes we changed a few details to protect children. and we did that whole process very much, you know, in a collaborative manner, and that's the only way i could, i could do it. but it was still hard and i was nervous, and i'm still sometimes also afraid because there's this publish and be damned thing. at some point you just have to present it to the world.

but so far there have been no repercussions, and my -- the women in my book have told some of their inner most secrets that they've never told anyone about before. and up until now at least they take great pride in this book. my main character, for instance, was approached by the u.s. embassy, and they said -- in kabul, and they said, you know, how could you talk to this foreign reporter about all this, and why did you to that? and she, she had made -- she explained to them that she had made a very conscious decision early on to talk about this because it's a window how afghanistan works and afghan culture. so that's sort of my story. >> thank you. >> um, mostly i was, you know being undercover cuts all of that out. the only thing i could do was make sure that definitely the

students, what would happen to the students. and i changed, obviously all of the missionaries and the students' names. and the students were all blurred, so -- which made it quite a different, difficult task because the whole book is about really their loveliness and how unique they were. and i had to kind of make them blur, blurry so you couldn't single them out. and generally also they come across being really loyal to -- [inaudible] so there was nothing to fold them in a way. and maybe only two incidences where they could, you know, i mean i literally made them impossible to identify. so i felt confident that i protected them because as an entire group they will not be punished. missionary wise, you know, i knew that they would be unhappy about the book, obviously, but they would have never allowed me

to write the book if i had told them what i was doing. and because they were already there with the north korean government's blessing, so this was not going to hurt them in the same way as kenneth bay or jeffrey -- [inaudible] it was a very different situation. so if there were any repercussions, i couldn't guess that but it would not be that kind of punishment. it might be financially more raising money for the school or something. but besides all that a unique situation where there is no inside report. it's now being sent to the international criminal court for the worst violations against humanity. twenty-five million people are in there, pretty much a gulag nation. the level of pure barbaric enclosement of its citizens it's unthinkable to me that this country is allowed to exist.

and i think i do not -- [inaudible] peek ask is there another way of -- people ask is there another way of getting in there. obviously not because no one has done it. there's literally no inside report coming out of north korea. so, you know, i think that -- [inaudible] about how i i feel about all of this and i think getting messages like, you know, there's blood on your hands for writing this book. and i don't, actually i really felt like blood is on all of our hands because this country's been in existence for last 60 some years -- [inaudible] actually gulags in there right now with political prisoners. and, you know, none of us are doing a single thing for, you know bringing change to north korea. so i don't know how much longer

we can sit around and wait until next time north korea decides to invite journalists in there for another forum on a feel-good, you know, propaganda concert. >> let's talk another question. let's see, how about in the white sweater? >> my question my question's for jenny. i have seen pictures from kabul of women in miniskirts from the '60s at universities, and to my mind that's still in living memory. so i wonder if anyone you spoke to referenced a path like that. i don't think it happened in the rural areas, but certainly in the cities where there was more gender equality and parity if they remembered that or if they brought it up ever. >> yes. that's sort of a short golden moment that many ex-pat afghans refer to and also afghans

themselves. but this was the russian attempt or the soviet attempt to do, essentially, what we've tried to do now to bring women out from their homes and all that. and before that it was very limited and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like that was a time ooh when women were free -- time when women were free, and it was also very different because it was still cultural rules. so it would be referred to as the russian time many times by afghans, and it was a brutal war. so it's almost that thing of, you know, at least the -- can like we hated the russians but at least it was some relief in some ways in the cities, for instance. you see still buildings and that. so it's a conflicted romance

maybe with that time because at the same time, you know, millions died. but it's largely referred to to a more short period in time where afghan women in the rural areas could do that to some extent, also depending on who they were, and those were often, you know upper class women. >> well, there's -- it's fascinating that your main characters' parents were -- [inaudible] and the mother remembers riding, you know, in a motor scooter in her miniskirt and the father is a professor, and they end up being just total gender reactionaries out in the country selling their daughters for the bride price. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> this is what -- >> and that's what war -- >> -- war does to people maybe. >> yeah. >> war will hurt women in a very

direct way. >> yeah. >> the argument for taking a girl out of school, for keeping women inside, all that becomes easier to make, so that's the very precarious moment right now also, you know, when you have seen the past decade of some were women getting an education is that going to be allowed to continue. because from the urban centers there's a hope that that will also grow. but what happens also in a time of increased insecurity is those people leave. like those with means leave the country. so then you have another wave of conservatives coming in, and be that's sort of what we're seeing now. like every afghan who can are try and get out. that's the immediate thing that you hear when you land in kabul. like what's the current rate for being smuggled to europe? and, you know, what routes do we take now? it's not a sense of, you know

we're building our future hoar. >> yeah. fascinating. one more one more -- yeah. one more question. how about you there. >> do i need a mic? >> yes you do. >> you do. [laughter] >> this question is also for jenny. granted this phenomenon in surreptitious, but i'm wondering if you have any ballpark -- how widespread is this? >> well every afghan will know someone. there will be -- every afghan who's not an elite ex-patriot who's lived abroad for many years will immediately offer up an example of someone in their extended family, a neighbor a great grandmother who did this. there's usually one in a school that will be referred to, officers and midwives will know of these children because they've been brought