"Afghan rapper escaped teen marriage by singing about it."

From Public Radio International. There's a skimpiness to the story and doesn't quite support the drama of the headline:

�One day my mom told me, �You have to return to Afghanistan with me. There�s a man there who wants to marry you. Your brother�s engaged and we need your dowry money to pay for his wedding.��

Sonita [Alizadeh] was devastated. So she wrote the song "Brides for Sale." The song starts �Let me whisper, so no one hears that I speak of selling girls. My voice shouldn�t be heard since it�s against Sharia. Women must remain silent� this is our tradition.�...

Sonita was worried what her parents would think about the video � but they actually loved it � and they also told her that she didn�t have to get married....

The attention around Sonita�s music landed her a full scholarship to an arts academy in Utah, and that led to the concert here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

PRI is giving her publicity and extracting a fair amount of criticism of America. The photo captions are: "Afghan rapper Sonita Alizadeh narrowly escaped a forced marriage at 14 by writing the song 'Brides for Sale.' She recently visited West Oakland, California, and was surprised that the US, like Iran and Afghanistan, has poor neighborhoods and homeless people." And: "Sonita was shocked by this neighborhood in West Oakland. 'Are you telling me in America there are places where you can�t walk alone at night?' she asked."