Feeling devastated after seeing this news about Afghanistan

You know very well that's not what I said.

I don't think a parent in that situation is evil if it really is that or death.

I questioned whether that WAS the situation though.

However, if it were (which as I said, is by no means certain), are you saying all the enslaved African Americans who refused to do what Margaret Garner did were immoral?

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

Can I second the Linda Norgrove Foundation as a great charity? They have strong connections still in Afghanistan and offer subtle and culturally appropriate help to women and children. They are also supporting a small group of Afghani student midwives in Scotland.

Funny how people are suddenly justifying slavery…

It's culturally acceptable in some parts of Afghanistan to sell infant daughters to be child brides.

It's not really to do with poverty, although wealthier families don't do it as much.

It is permissable under Islam - but I do not agree with it.

If there was literally no food and no other option and she'd die otherwise- is he? I don' think so.

The question is: WAS it that or death?

It is exactly the same principle. I sent money to World Food Programme. The more it's publisised the more people will send money.

The dad selling his daughter is too.

To be entirely fair, no Islamic countries apart from UAE have diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.

Pakistan and the Taliban have a notoriously difficult relationship. Iran does not recognise the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan but has what has been called a working relationship with them.

there are a fair few Islamic charities working within Afghanistan these days - here is one:

https://islamic-relief.org/where_we_work/afghanistan/

In that case the brother is the evil one. I suspect there are a lot of men there taking advantage of their relatives' poverty like that.

So the dad’s brother said ‘I am not prepared to help you but I will buy your young daughter, my niece, to be my sexual and domestic slave for the rest of her life, however long I may choose that to be’

Zero sympathy for human traffickers and if you sell your child that’s what you are.

Selling little children to pedos to become sex slaves and child brides. Rather than fight for your children and country. Scum.

Run away claiming you’re trying to better your women and girls yet leaving them to suffer. Yuk.

Always the men benefiting all the bloody time. While women and girls suffer.

This, if that situation was true.

Why does he not sell himself first? Or his boy children?

@Twinandatwoyearold

to answer some of your questions:

homosexuality is not permissible in Islam. Therefore the religious leaders in Afghanistan are against bacha bazi.

however a religion being against something does not stop it happening. Christianity is often seen these days as a “peaceful” religion yet in medieval times bishops rode into battle with knights and the concession was that they didn’t have a bladed weapon as they were not supppsed to draw blood. So instead they carried maces and other such blunt hitting instruments.

child marriage is permitted in Islam with the canonical example being the marriage of the Prophet Mohammed to Aisha who was somewhere between six and nine at the time.

slavery is also permitted in Islam with the proviso that no Muslim may be enslaved. The Taliban have explicitly permitted slavery in the new laws introduced in Jan 2026.

A Muslim man is permitted to have sex with any of his female slaves. This is known as the doctrine of “what my right hand possesses”. He may not prostitiue them out to others, but he can sell them to anyone he chooses.

Did you read the article? She would have died without surgery which he could never afford. So the choice was either - death - or have another 5 years and then she is married off, at 10. The Dad not eating would not have solved this problem.

Awful decision to have to make. What a cruel world :(

It’s a long-standing tradition in that part of the country. It didn’t just begin because of the current situation. As to whether it was really a stark alternative between a dead or a sold child, well he would say that wouldn’t he? Did they ask the mother what she felt about it?

So you think he should have let her die?

I would rather all my family died than sell one of my children to a depraved paedophile, yes.

Was it wrong then for the grandfather to stop the mother killing her children?

A terrible, terrible situation...

Reminds me of the case of Margaret Garner Toni Morrison based Beloved on. A hellish situation but I don't think she should have killed her baby.

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

So you think he should have let her die?

Death or a life of daily sexual torture followed by death at a very young age from childbirth age 10?

Actually, you're the oblivious one with no knowledge of what actually living in that situation is like, pronouncing on high from afar. I think you've no idea who the monster is and what you'd do because you've not been in that situation of watching child after child die of hunger. If you're so quick to condemn all mothers and all fathers, why aren't you doing something about it? A good start would be getting out and about in the world and seeing just how some people have to live.

This doesn’t even happen in countries with literal famines going on

Like I never heard about Ethiopians selling their daughters during famine times …