Benazir has long hair and is Bashful, with long locks of rust-colored hair dyed with henna.
She buries her head in her knees when she is asked if she knows she is going to marry one of their sons.
Her father says he will get the equivalent of $2,000 for Benazir, but he hasn't explained what she will get. He says she is too young to comprehend.
Benazir is young.
It is not unusual for families to pay a bribe to a bride's family for a marriage, but it is not normal to arrange a marriage for a child so young. The economic collapse following the Taliban takeover in August has forced already poor families to make desperate choices.
Benazir is walking with her father in Afghanistan. NBC is a television network.
The children in the desert community of Shaidai have a hard time living in the mountains of western Afghanistan.
Children like Benazir and her siblings beg on the streets or collect garbage to heat their homes because they don't have enough money for wood.
Her father, Murad Khan, looked much older than he was. A day laborer who hasn't found work in months and with eight children to feed, his decision to sell Benazir to marry at such a young age comes down to a cold calculation.
There are 10 people in the family. He said in Pashto that he was trying to keep 10 alive.
Benazir will marry a boy from a family in Iran when she reaches puberty, according to Khan. Benazir will be taken away by the man who bought her if he doesn't get the money for her soon.
He said that he would take her away from him. He will take her away and say she is ours.
Poor Afghans have been pushed over the edge because of a combination of a severe drought and freezing of foreign aid by governments that don't recognize the new Taliban government.
It is seen as a lifesaver for families that barely have a loaf of bread to eat if parents promise their daughters early for marriage.
Benazir is cooking bread with a group of children in Herat. NBC is a television network.
The United Nations Population Fund is deeply concerned by reports that child marriage is on the rise in Afghanistan.
According to the Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund, there have been credible reports of families offering daughters as young as 20 days old up for future marriage in return for a bribe.
A piece of your heart.
Benazir's best friend, 7-year-old Saliha, was sold for $2,000 to someone in the family of her father's in-laws in Faryab province.
The community already has responsibilities for Benazir and Saliha. They go to a mosque to get water and haul jugs back to their homes because of a scarcity in the desert.
Like her older neighbors, Saliha also spins yarn, pulling at a matted cloud of wool brought by traders and twisting it into neat spools of string. It takes four days to refine eight pounds of material.
The family is in debt. Muhammed Khan says he took out loans from store owners.
Farzana is just 6 12 pounds. NBC is a television network.
He said the shopkeepers gave him food as a loan because he told them he was selling his daughter and paying them back.
The money he makes from selling Saliha will be used to feed her four siblings.
He says it was a difficult decision.
Your children are part of your heart. He says that if he wasn't forced to do it, he wouldn't do it.
Before the Taliban took over, Afghanistan was a poor country. Most of the public finances are supplied by grants from the United States and other countries.
The aid money was frozen when the Taliban government took over. The flow of cash came to a halt and created a humanitarian crisis.
More than half of the population of Afghanistan is facing hunger and more than three million children are suffering from malnutrition, according to the United Nations World Food Program.
The agency said it has never seen emergency levels of food insecurity in Afghanistan, with all 34 provinces affected.
An emergency feeding center in western Afghanistan is running out of beds.
The Doctors Without Borders-run facility at the Herat Regional Hospital treats the most severely malnourished babies, like tiny Farzana, who weighs just 6 12 pounds. 75 babies are being cared for here.
Her father is a butcher, but his business has collapsed so badly that he couldn't keep feeding his family.
Farzana has a pale arm sticking out and her wide eyes don't blink.
The head nurse for pediatrics with Doctors Without Borders said that they are seeing small children who are not well breastfed by their mothers because they are too thin.
Many kids are receiving no primary care because of disruptions to health care and aid agencies. It is too late for many who arrive, with one child dying every day here.
The baby at the center, Ali, is small and pale, barely mustering up energy to cry. Ali was too weak to suckle because his mother was too thin. He has been at the center for three months at 4 months old.
Umar said her husband is a house painter. He sold his tools so we could feed the baby. Things have gotten worse since the Taliban came. We had gone to zero.
Richard, Gabriel, and Ahmed reported from Herat. Yuliya Talmazan is from London.
