Perfunctorily I asked how her day had been. "All day I spent crying."

Seems Yasmine (not her real name), a friend of a friend, had been beaten again by her brother - something he's done pretty constantly for the last couple of years. Seems he's spouting all sorts of chauvinistic stuff like she shouldn't be leaving the house or getting an education.

This isn't the first I've heard about this. My first reaction a week or so ago was to ask if she'd told her mother. Her mother knew. Then I asked about her father, but she said he could never know.

I suggested telling a relative. No, came the reply, that's too shameful. She just snorted when I suggested contacting an NGO or a government agency.

She said she'll put up with it for his sake and the family's sake. And before you suggest it, if she were to leave her home, she'd most likely be ostracised or sent to jail, which is what often happens to women and girls who run away.

Of course, women are beaten in every country in the world. But Afghanistan is apparently suffering an epidemic of violence against women. This Amnesty International report points out that women and girls are still liable to become victims of a whole range of violence, from abduction by armed gangs to beatings and rape by someone close to them.

A UNIFEM research project suggests that 80 percent of the violence is committed by a family member - husband, father, brother, son. Ten percent of the abuse is committed by women, the study says.

More generally, this Human Rights Watch report discusses how women are bearing the brunt of the deteriorating security situation. "This year the Afghan government has taken several steps that have weakened the already paltry government commitment to women, in a misguided effort to cater to demands by Islamist groups, either those supposedly supporting President Karzai or those allied with the Taliban," it says.

AID MAKES MATTERS WORSE

It seems sadly predictable that war and poverty have these sorts of lingering effects, but the really distressing thing is that wrong-headed development policies may be making the situation worse.

This fabulous piece by Lina Abirafeh, a gender expert, posits, among other things, that the exclusive emphasis many aid agencies have placed on women in the last five years could be marginalising and antagonising men. "Many aid programs in Afghanistan have focused on women by excluding men, thereby perpetuating an environment that is unable to find roots in Afghan society," Abirafeh writes.

I'm not feeling very sympathetic towards Yasmine's brother at the moment and would happily see him dropped on some freezing mountaintop and left there to fend for himself. Still, Abirafeh makes sense - it's hard to "liberate" a woman or girl without in some way bringing those around her along too.

Yasmine benefits from of all sorts of positive discrimination. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve the opportunities - she's smart and driven.

She has received help, like aid-funded language courses and opportunities to work with international organisations. But her brother, meanwhile, is apparently stuck in a dead-end state school that has virtually no books and abysmal teachers. He clearly feels he has no future.

This bifurcation seems to happen a lot - a small number have opportunities and a future, while others are stuck in a no-hope rut, out of the game by the time they get to their mid-teens.

So last night, Yasmine was sobbing. She said she'd been all bloody but her sister had cleaned her up. I'm not quite sure why she tells me, because it's not like I can do anything. But, as a woman I know who's well-versed in these things says, "Maybe she's trying things out on you, talking about it so that she can later talk to people in her community."

Maybe she's close to going to one of the NGOs that sprung up to help women like her. But I don't think so. So it's down to the community and family to solve problems that the state cannot or is unwilling to tackle.

The government often seems like a corrupt and hostile agent, at least in the minds of many Afghans. My sense though is that many communities and families have been fragmented and traumatised by war and poverty, and actually can't do very much. My friend falls into the gap created by these two often failing systems.

Many of us Westerners tend to be action oriented. We often feel that with enough money and good ideas we can solve pretty much any problem.

I've begun to think that some problems have no solution, or if there are solutions, their timeline is beyond what we can comfortably stand. Sometimes, what seems to be the best solution can be unpalatable - should Yasmine get married to get out of the house? At this moment, it looks like a pretty attractive proposition, but goodness knows what cycle of abuse a hasty marriage could unleash.

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