Afghan soldiers are using boys as sex slaves, and the U.S. is looking the other way

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This is not a new issue.

Afghan soldiers are using boys as sex slaves, and the U.S. is looking the other way

By Anuj Chopra July 18 at 4:05 PM

Anuj Chopra is the outgoing Kabul bureau chief of Agence France-Presse (AFP). His next posting for AFP will be Riyadh. He tweets at @AnujChopra.

KABUL – Last summer, an Afghan police commander invited me to his post for tea — and to view his “beautiful” boy sex slave. ... I stumbled through a farm of chest-high opium poppy stocks to reach his mud-and-wattle outpost on the outskirts of Tarin Kot, the capital of southern Uruzgan province that is teetering in the face of a Taliban upsurge. On its open roof, a slight teenager sat next to his hulking captor, stealing sad glances at me as he quietly filled our tea glasses. A shock of auburn curls jutted out of his embroidered pillbox hat and his milky eyes were lined with kohl. The commander flaunted him the way a ringmaster exhibits an exotic animal. “See my beautiful bacha (boy slave),” he said, blithe and casual, a gun dangling at his side.

The commander, an ally of the United States in the war against the Taliban, is not an anomaly. Hundreds of such outposts of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a front-line force armed and funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars, and other pro-government militias are believed to have enslaved young boys for dancing and sexual companionship, many of them kidnapped. ... Freedom from the Taliban’s puritanical regime in 2001 also brought freedom to do “bacha bazi,” the cultural practice of sexual slavery and abuse of boys who are often dressed effeminately and whose possession is seen by Afghan strongmen as a marker of power and masculinity.

As the United States sinks deeper into the Afghan quagmire, preparing to send additional troops into a seemingly endless war, it is glossing over this hidden but pervasive abuse of children by its local allies. U.S. tolerance of this egregious inhumanity sends out the message that it is acceptable for U.S.-backed forces to keep child sex slaves. ... It also has strong security implications. I reported last year how the Taliban are exploiting entrenched bacha bazi to infiltrate Afghan security ranks, effectively using child sex slaves — many of them brutally abused and hungry for revenge — as Trojan Horses to mount deadly insider attacks.
....

To win in Afghanistan, America cannot afford to lose its humanity.

[Rollo]

1. This is nothing new in Afghanistan

I remember reading back in the early 2000's that British troops were having problems with rebuffing sexual advances from local Afghan men. I guess blond and blue-eyed is considered desirable there.

On the other hand, the cradle of Western Civilization, Greece, also indulged in similar practices.

I don't think it's any reason to support bringing back harsh and puritannical rule, though. Perhaps a non-religious rule of civil law that protects minors from sexual exploitation and slavery is the answer.

[yurbud]

2. so we're NOT there to promote human rights? Gee, who knew?

[Igel]

3. I think they should send in all the lawyers.

And the next day, without warning, withdraw all the troops.

If promoting human rights is the first and foremost goal, that should work. We can save money on troops, get our guys out of harm's way, and the defense of civil rights in the courts can just keep on rolling.

It's like Sam Tanenhaus' critique of Bush II's PR for the Iraq invasion in 2003. He was aghast that they just picked one as the main one because it was the most likely to convince people. Of course, that was after the complaint that there wasn't a single message--human rights, threat to neighbors, terrorism sponsor, etc., etc., all were reasons. But in 2002 there had to be just one reason, otherwise people kept asking, "What's the reason?" and not getting a clear answer. But in 2005 the script was flipped, and Bush II was duplicitous in saying that "the" reason was whatever he said. WMD, I guess it was.

In other words, the on-going Afghanistan conflict has many fathers and mothers. Fighting ISIS and the Taliban. Taking out jihadis that go there from places like, oh, Tunisia, to fight. Women's rights. Education. Perhaps, in the end, children's rights. Maybe access to minerals. Resisting increasing Russian or Chinese influence. Undermining Pakistan's intelligence service.

Progress is a process, not a binary opposition between two forces. Even rudimentary Marxist philosophy gets you that.

Don't do a Sam Tanenhaus and assume there's only one. (Full disclosure--Sam Tanenhaus's brother Mike is drop-dead smart and I've known him to be fair and helpful to his students to an extreme. Don't know much about Sam.)

[yurbud]

4. you left out pipeline routes and laundering the proceeds of the opium trade, but point well-taken