Feeling devastated after seeing this news about Afghanistan

[LovingLilacDuck]

I stumbled across this on BBC — https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q25dwj807o

I can’t stop crying. I feel so incredibly devastated that we live in such an unequal world. I cannot believe in 2026 people have to starve and children die — and girls be sold??? because of hunger. Goodness sake. That’s not right, it’s so inhumane. Seeing the tears on those tiny girls’ eyes and how fearful they are just breaks my heart so much, oh Gosh.

I just really feel sorry for these people who have to live under Taliban and suffer immensely. It’s so heartbreaking. And I know these people are not the only ones unfortunately…I just feel like we all have so much, more than we all need to and I wish we could just help the poor more as a whole world. But that doesn’t bring any profits does it???!

I wish I could do something to help, whatever that may be. Does anyone have a clue about what to do? I’d appreciate any insight. Thank you.

Oh please. The Americans spent years and billions of dollars arming and training the Afghan police and Army only for them to defect en masse to the Taliban the minute the Americans left. Like within HOURS.
Either those men secretly supported the Taliban all the time but were opportunistically taking US money, or they’re cowards who don’t care enough about their wives and children to fight for them.

And as for the fact that some men were desperate to get out along with the US soldiers, that depends on what they were afraid of doesn’t it? Maybe they were just afraid the Taliban would kill anyone who’d been involved with the US but that doesn’t mean they did kill everyone. Maybe the solution to stay safe was to change sides along with your arms?

But if you’re armed and trained and you won’t defend the government that’s paid you for years you don’t deserve much sympathy afterwards.

You also leave out the Iranian leftists that joined with the Islamists to overthrow the Shah. They were discarded when no longer useful to the Islamists.

You’d think Western leftists would remember this, but they seem committed to making the same mistake

Fair if I missed these stories. But selling daughters so young seems to be very particular. (And to be clear, I’m not saying Ethiopia is some bastion of women’s rights. I’m saying that people in most cultures would not consider selling their daughters into sex slavery)

I have just reread the article and saw one of the vile fathers sold his daughter to his RELATIVE!!!

WTF! Why did the relative (who clearly has enough money to buy kids) not just help out his dying family member?

If said family member had paid the full amount he’d have taken the unwell child away immediately.

This is sick tbh. This culture is so far removed from my culture and values and upbringing I accept I don’t understand it. If they are prepared to do that to their own relative what would they do to strangers kids?

BBC extract-

‘I had no money to pay the medical expenses. So I sold my daughter to a relative," he says.
Shaiqa's surgery was successful. The money for it came from the 200,000 Afghani ($3,200; £2,400) she has been sold for.
"If I had taken the whole sum at that time, he would have taken her away. So I told him just give me enough for her treatment now, and in the next five years you can give me the rest after which you can take her. She will become his daughter-in-law," explains Saeed.’

@Twinandatwoyearold on the off chance that you are actually interested.....

Probably because the relative had enough money for a dowry for a son's marriage but not enough to give large sums of cash to every one of their numerous relatives (Afghans tend to come from large, extended families) who are in dire straights. Or perhaps they didn't want to.

As for the father's actions, perhaps if you are going to arrange a marriage for your daughter you think it's better to do that with someone you know, a family member whose family you think will treat her well?. Or perhaps their wasn't much time to find someone before her appendix burst?

Obviously you think her father should just have let her die in agony. But humanity is comprised of generations of people who will do just about anything to keep their children alive so it's a minority view and something very few people would actually do regardless of what they claim when they are not actually in that position.

And why do you think the BBC picked an example where the child was ill and not one more like those I found in an article from ten years ago, where the father sold three daughters as part-dowry for a new wife for himself?

Is there any chance that they were determined to find ann example that could be used to portray the father positively, as opposed to instances where the father wanted the money for his own reasons?

Actually I don’t think it is “western privilege” I have never seen anything in the news from any famine hit area anywhere in the world like this. News usually features exhausted mothers doing everything on their power to keep their children alive, to their own detriment.
😥

Afghan Women and “Landays” this is a long and quite old article, but a fascinating insight into the resilience and resistance of Afghan women through their tradition of singing poem songs called Landays. I hope that they can still find a secret space for their voices…

Just because it's not in the news doesnt mean it doesnt happen. Certainly happens throughout Central and West Africa when families are in extremise. Used to happen in India, in Nepal, in China (not sure about now, but probably). Wife if you're lucky, servant if not.

I think its kindness and compassion that makes some of us weep. No woman or girl is free until we all are. I can't imagine not feeling sad reading this.

Reasons or whatever aside, why is it unreasonable to feel sad?

Bacha bazi shows it is not only women and girls being abused.

Is it? I'm talking about the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The one that the US and UK had nothing to do with?

As for ISIS...the West did not make men believe those things, or perpetrate those brutalities. We're not talking about the economic upheaval that the west is responsible for, we're taking about an organisation that relishes unimaginable, sadistic cruelty.

I am interested and I have done extensive research on this topic since yesterday and posted several links earlier on in the thread.

Do you honestly think you would prefer yourself/your child to sold into sexual slavery and raped by an adult man at 9 and potentially end up with a fistula following birth (3-4% in Afghanistan due to the girls being so young) and having to have sex with your rapist for your entire youth/life and raise his children? Personally I think death would be preferable to that living hell.

The footnotes on the bbc website say the article has been updated (this footnote is now on the article - Additional context has been added to make clear that Saeed's daughter Shaiqa was sold to his relative for marriage).

The fact there is a market to buy children to rape at 9/10 is grim. I will never believe marriage/sex with a child is acceptable. Buying another human being is Slavery. The child cannot consent, I will never believe slavery is acceptable for any reason or in any circumstance. To sell your own child as a sex slave is vile. But it’s clear some cultures do believe slavery is acceptable in 2026.

Definition - Slavery is broadly defined as the ownership, buying, and selling of human beings for the purpose of forced and unpaid labor, treating people as property rather than individuals with rights.

Antislavery.org says ‘Children forced to marry. Anyone under 18, who doesn’t consent to a marriage (or doesn’t fully understand consent), is exploited within their marriage, or is not able to leave is living in slavery.’

This article is about exchanging girls for cash. The girls are sold. They cannot consent. They cannot leave. The girls and mothers have no voices in the interview.

I know family marriage is common in Afghanistan, I posted links earlier - it increases the risk of birth defects and presumably larger medical bills, large families and the risk of birth defects surely won’t help the families financial situation.

The proportion of consanguineous marriages in the country was 46.2%, ranging from 38.2% in Kabul province to 51.2% in Bamyan province.

Source - www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial-science/article/abs/consanguineous-marriages-in-afghanistan/96BB71CAA60F223442CF21D27B9376A3

I also wonder if these interviewed fathers married their own wives at 9/10. What abuse have their wives endured? Are they living with a pedophile man? How does that affect their life and relationship with the children from their marriage?

The article raises more questions about the abuse of women in Afghanistan. I don’t feel sympathy for the men.

I posted a link earlier about the sexual abuse of young boys in Afghanistan and the history of this. Boys are raped and sold too.

So yes I’m very interested and I have researched but will not support slavery and child rape/marriage in ANY culture.

Missing source

www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/child-marriage/

Good point actually.

But still could not, in the main, chase off the Taliban. Presumably because too many of them ARE the Taliban.

I would like to remind us all that there was a group of freedom fighters holed up in a valley somewhere. Presumably they lost fatally.

• Gender Breakdown: A 2015 survey found that 16.1% of men used drugs compared to 9.5% of women, with opioids being the most commonly used substance among men.

Drug use is high in Afghanistan too - quick internet search brings up a few articles (most are quite old) and drug use seems to be increasing (especially synthetic drugs).

UN extract -

A new publication by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) finds that drug use in Afghanistan remains dominated by traditional substances, while the use of synthetic substances and misused pharmaceutical drugs is increasing. In this assessment, men most frequently cited cannabis (46%) and opium (19%) as the drugs used in their communities, while “Tablet K” (11%) and methamphetamine (7%) were also mentioned.

For example, one day of methamphetamine use can cost up to 138% of a casual worker’s daily income or 67% of a skilled worker’s wage.

How many men are starving due to prioritising drugs? How many girls are sold to enable their father to buy drugs?

www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/in-afghanistan-fathers-barter-daughters-to-settle-drug-debts/278217/

Planes could take off and land at Camp Bastion

We seem to have got to the point where left wing progressives are now supporting slavery…

This isn’t new. I know charities who have been trying to help for donkeys years - it won’t change, it will never change.

Only if brown/black people are doing it to other brown/black people. Or a certain religion is involved.

The far left have already welded themselves to ideologies that actively hate women, children, lgbt anything, freedom of speech and religion etc. Nothing would shock me anymore.

Slavery is actively being practiced in Sudan with black African Christians being enslaved.

Aside from some US Christian organisations no one (especially on the left) sees to care about that. Instead the focus is on reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, something that the UK helped to stop in 1807 and enforce in 1833.

When the West intervened in Afghanistan and tried to improve the lives of women and children they were criticised by many in the West as colonialists or "only there for the Afghan oil" (which there isn't any).

So the West then pull out of Afghanistan and now there are those in the West criticising the lack of support for women and children in Afghanistan.

It would be funny if it wasn't so bloody tragic for the women and children.

I am not normally a supporter of the communist party of China but one of the positive impacts of communism there was the total abolition of slavery.

it is no longer a thing in China.

Sure it is a positive but it was over a 100 years after the UK did the same. Plus the UK through the efforts of West African squadron prevented other countries from slave trade at considerable cost of lives and money.

But I recognise that it is entirely unfashionable to praise the actions of the British Empire and instead praise Communist China despite them being responsible for the greatest mass killing of civilians in history.

Yes I know what revolution you are talking about and the coup which the US and UK organised is part of the story that led to the 1979 revolution.

It wasn’t just about economic instability at all.

But You are totally correct on the organisation that’s why I pointed out that western influence is only part of the story.