Afghanistan humanitarian crisis

Its the saddest of situations, heart breaking.
I'm currently reading Lyse Doucet's book about Afghanistan. I can wholeheartedly recommend it as it gives so much background information and insight in the situation

@Ihatetomatoes "We are so lucky to live in the UK."

Whilst I agree that we should consider ourselves fortunate, it is incorrect to say that our democracy, women's rights, healthcare, welfare and relative social justice are a matter of "luck". Men and women over many centuries were imprisoned, transported, tortured and killed to ensure the many freedoms we enjoy today. Luck had very little to do with it.

But Afghanistan wasn’t always a backwater of degrading zealotry and a quite frankly bizarre take on Islam. I’ve said upthread and I’ll say it again in the 1970s cosmopolitan Afghanistan was a progressive and a more liberal country. Girls were educated and women had professional jobs. Kabul university was internationally recognised as producing rigorous academic and scientific studies. The rural areas were more conservative and yes there was poverty, but nothing by comparison with the suffering of today’s standards, particularly for woman. Dictators don’t want an educated society, because it’s much harder to control. They don’t want freedom of thinking, they want indoctrination and followers who don’t question.

They do sell the boys

they sell the boys to be raped by older men.

it’s known as Bacha bazi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

the American troops said it was one of the hardest things about being in Afghanistan, knowing that most of the policticsl leaders raped boys.

I am tired of us in the West being expected to pay to solve all the world's problems.

I just looked it up as interested and it looks like a range of reasons for a cascading collapse, airforce, non existent soldiers, theft, lack of command etc.

It also shows how hard it is for any country to get out from under an oppressive regime such as the Taliban.

This.

Poorly educated religious zealots in thrall to a death cult rarely make good governments. The billionaires have spent most of this century trying to intervene in Afghanistan, not always for the most desirable reasons admittedly, and have been roundly rejected time and again.

You can't help those who won't help themselves

What a sickening article. There truly is no hope for Afghanistan, not even a glimmer. Aid won't work, it will always fall into the hands of the oppressors. If a man really cared about his family, surely he would do anything possible to Prevent the cycle from continuing - abstaining from sex may be the only power they have. You couldn't, in good conscience, bring more daughters into the world knowing what sort of life they have ahead of them.

It's men who want this, men who enable this, men who pay for this. Whether the victims are girls, women, boys, it all comes down to male vileness.

Yes that is the spin from the US

in reality they were left with equipment they were unable to operate, attacked from all sides and just totally overwhelemd

this was predicted by many but ignored

What you really think these young men just want to leave their mothers knowing how bad their lives are and knowing its a real possibility that they will never see their families again, can you not imagine how desperate you must feel to do that, how heart-breaking this is

have you ever spoken with refugees about their experiences

Young men from many cultures (one I am from myself) the young men go abroad and are expected and most often do finance their family for the rest of their lives
They do, but it takes many, many years to get to the West. They have basically abandoned women who simply will not be able to survive long enough to get the money sent into the bank accounts they don't have and can't access because they can't leave the house. I think Afghan men should not be allowed asylum. Life is terrible for everyone in Afghanistan but they are not the worst victims by a long shot. We can't have the whole of Afghanistan here so we should not have men who have abandoned women in their country while they seek riches abroad.

And then some of those men who get to the West continue to put their Stone Age views of women into practice here, resulting in danger and harm for UK girls and women too. Examples:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g4x2zyer2o

https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2025/december/man-charged-with-rape-of-two-teenage-girls-in-bolton-over-weekend/

https://www.cps.gov.uk/west-midlands/news/two-teenagers-sentenced-rape-leamington-spa

https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/news/2025/12/four-charged-after-teenager-raped-in-bristol/

I already know we have a plentiful supply of home grown British rapists, by the way, so don't bother telling me. The point is that I don't wish to prop up a thoroughly misogynistic state apparatus any more. The women and children in Afghanistan have my sympathy but I can't see their situation changing in any meaningful way without the Taliban being brought down.

The army were trained and equipped to fight but as seen there was nothing to stop them just handing over all weapons to the Taliban.

Me neither 😞

It's a disgusting situation don't know how you'd bring them to justice..as always children and women suffer.

and where do these magical weapons come from where does the money come from refugees can not work

I would like to see more woman and children here too I think many of us would. Young men from many cultures (one I am from myself) the young men go abroad and are expected and most often do finance their family for the rest of their lives

I think you are really looking at this from a cosy western point of view

Life in Afghanistan is hell for the vast majority of people, certainly harsher on girls and women but that isn't down to all their fathers/husbands/brothers/uncles/sons they live under a regime that strips people of all there dignity, they live in terrible terrible poverty, they are just about existing. Yes its a deeply misogynistic culture but that can't change until people are free and safe to push for changes that is not possible for them right now

Sorry i see you alreadymentioned the SA.

Yep but that’s more on the army and the Taliban. I’m not saying your posts do this but there seems to be a lack of accountability for the actual perpetrators of the horrors.

That BBC article is an absolute disgrace. "Oh no, the poor man sex trafficking his own daughter".

I'm not sure how Afghanistan is the fault or responsibility of billionaires.

Don't think it stops at dancing🤮

Once the Afghan army skedaddled after about ten days ooo lots of shiny new weapons and ammo for Mr.Taliban.

Absolutely. Personally, I dislike that so many unattached men are refugees - they should be helping get women and children out to safety, and then going back to fight for change. But that's about as likely as pigs flying.

There are some grim options for boys as well:

Bacha bazi (Persian for "boy play") is an exploitative, centuries-old practice in Afghanistan where wealthy or powerful men enslave, sexually abuse, and coerce adolescent boys to dress in women's clothing and dance for entertainment.

It is the fault of the majority of Afghan men who cheered and waved the Taliban back in, and the fault of the men who abandon women and children to try their luck in the West, knowing their wives, mothers and daughters won't be able to leave the house.