A 10-year-old girl trussed up in explosives and sent to blow-up a checkpoint has told Afghan police she will not return to her "abusive" family.
The young girl, named only as Spozhmai, told police she was scared when her brother hit her, and ordered her to wear the explosive-packed vest. He promised her that she would not die, but her targets would, she said.
The girl is in protective custody in Lashkar Gah, after an Afghan soldier spotted her acting suspiciously and saw she was wearing the vest.
Spozhmai, 10, who was about to be used by the Taliban as a suicide bomber, talks as she sits at a police office in Helmand province
Spozhmai said her father was aware of the plan from the start. "Of course my Dad knew, they were all in it together," she told the BBC's World Service Newsday programme. "It was my Dad first and then my brothers.
"After my brothers left me that night near the checkpoint. I slept in the desert until a guy from the checkpoint came.
"When I told the commander my story, he told me to go back home. But I said no, they are beating me there, they are not treating me well.
"The same thing will happen again. They have told me before: 'If you don't do it this time, we will make you do it again."
Her father had visited to order her home, she said. "I said: 'No, I will kill myself rather than go with you'."
"I did all the things at home, I cooked, I cleaned the whole house, and they would treat me badly as if I was a slave.
"My brother told me 'you are here in this world and you will die. You are not here to learn, or to do anything else.
Abdul Ghafoor, the girl's father, said on Thursday that his son serves as a Taliban commander and the group would gun down him and his daughter if they were found.
President Hamid Karzai had asked security officials to handover the child to her parents after they made certain assurances.
The Taliban has denied any involvement.