BAMIYAN, AFGHANISTAN - OCTOBER 8: Bas Gul, 17, resides at a women's shelter and safe house October 7, 2010 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. She was a child bride, forced to marry at age 11, and ran away after five years of marriage to the boy, who was only five years old at the time of the marriage. Until women's shelters were started, something that was unknown here before 2003, a woman in an abusive marriage usually had no one to go to for protection. The problems many battered and abused women are confronting are deeply ingrained in a culture that has mainly been governed by tribal law. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, a more concrete idea of women's rights has begun to take hold, promoted by the newly created Ministry of Women's Affairs and a small community of women's advocates. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
