Page 16 | Feeling devastated after seeing this news about Afghanistan

LovingLilacDuck · 2026-05-19T07:13:19+00:00

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

Gealach · 22/05/2026 18:08

Auroraloves · 22/05/2026 16:53

Why can’t on the women come across instead of all the men?

Loads of women and children did arrive under the official resettlement schemes put in place for specific groups of people.

For those who could not benefit from the schemes, and who fled Afghanistan, there are more men on those routes because the journey to Europe is extremely dangerous. Women and children tend to stay in camps in Iran or Pakistan.

Overall over 40% of asylum seekers in the UK are women and children. But many of them come as dependents after the adult male who fled first.

EasternStandard · 22/05/2026 19:39

Gealach · 22/05/2026 18:08

Loads of women and children did arrive under the official resettlement schemes put in place for specific groups of people.

For those who could not benefit from the schemes, and who fled Afghanistan, there are more men on those routes because the journey to Europe is extremely dangerous. Women and children tend to stay in camps in Iran or Pakistan.

Overall over 40% of asylum seekers in the UK are women and children. But many of them come as dependents after the adult male who fled first.

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I doubt that’s happening to the same extent with Labour’s changes. It’ll be harder for women and children.

FernFaery · 22/05/2026 19:42

Here we go again

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15840767/men-Norfolk-grooming-gang-charged-rape-child-sex-offences.html

Afghan migrants charged with rape and child sex abuse offences

The charges against the men relate to alleged offences that took place against two girls in their early-to-mid teens between August 2023 and May 2025.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15840767/men-Norfolk-grooming-gang-charged-rape-child-sex-offences.html

FernFaery · 22/05/2026 19:43

1dayatatime · 22/05/2026 18:00

This is what happens when Afghan men bring their culture to the UK;

Diversity is our strength???

Seven Afghan men charged over child sexual exploitation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e2wzpe7xjo

Waiting for the ‘it’s men’ crowd…

RingoJuice · 22/05/2026 20:24

Gealach · 22/05/2026 18:08

Loads of women and children did arrive under the official resettlement schemes put in place for specific groups of people.

For those who could not benefit from the schemes, and who fled Afghanistan, there are more men on those routes because the journey to Europe is extremely dangerous. Women and children tend to stay in camps in Iran or Pakistan.

Overall over 40% of asylum seekers in the UK are women and children. But many of them come as dependents after the adult male who fled first.

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if they bring their men over (which they will), it’s useless. The men will still have the same values and hierarchy within their family unit

RingoJuice · 22/05/2026 20:26

FernFaery · 22/05/2026 19:43

Waiting for the ‘it’s men’ crowd…

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People like this never acknowledge why I can go backpacking in deepest darkest China but risk gangrape or worse in places like India. Almost like … it’s not the same!

Auroraloves · 22/05/2026 21:47

FernFaery · 22/05/2026 19:43

Waiting for the ‘it’s men’ crowd…

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There’s a thread ongoing about this. Yes there’s a definite “it’s men” gang on there, as if that excuses the boat men raping these girls

GaIadriel · 22/05/2026 22:45

Auroraloves · 22/05/2026 21:47

There’s a thread ongoing about this. Yes there’s a definite “it’s men” gang on there, as if that excuses the boat men raping these girls

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I think the "it's all male violence" narrative actually undermines efforts to tackle nuanced areas like religious extremism/honour killings/gang violence/etc and many other areas. I've seen posters actively trying to shut people down by saying "it's all male violence".

To me it's kinda like saying "oh, femicide is just murder so we'll lump it in with all the other homicides including male knife victims etc".

Puzzledandpissedoff · 23/05/2026 09:59

I think the "it's all male violence" narrative actually undermines efforts to tackle nuanced areas like religious extremism/honour killings/gang violence/etc and many other areas

I agree, @Galadriel, but then it's quite clear that this is the aim

Anything - absolutely anything - rather than acknowledge the risk of importing men from cultures where too many place no value at all on women

Borrowerdale · 23/05/2026 10:29

GaIadriel · 22/05/2026 22:45

I think the "it's all male violence" narrative actually undermines efforts to tackle nuanced areas like religious extremism/honour killings/gang violence/etc and many other areas. I've seen posters actively trying to shut people down by saying "it's all male violence".

To me it's kinda like saying "oh, femicide is just murder so we'll lump it in with all the other homicides including male knife victims etc".

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It also ignores the fact that illegal immigrants shouldn’t be here so any crime committed by an illegal immigrant is a failure of the state to protect the people in Britain by allowing them to be here/enter the community.

GaIadriel · 23/05/2026 12:31

Puzzledandpissedoff · 23/05/2026 09:59

I think the "it's all male violence" narrative actually undermines efforts to tackle nuanced areas like religious extremism/honour killings/gang violence/etc and many other areas

I agree, @Galadriel, but then it's quite clear that this is the aim

Anything - absolutely anything - rather than acknowledge the risk of importing men from cultures where too many place no value at all on women

It's so odd.

Another thing that I find a bit distasteful is when posters say stuff like "Why should we be glad of men giving their lives to protect our society? It's always men that start these wars. All male violence" etc.

It completely erases the distinction between good/bad, perpetrator/victim, and the myriad of other factors like ethnicity, religion, cultural views, etc. It just reduces it all down to male/female when in reality an Arab woman with a strong 'Free Palestine' mentality is unlikely to side with a Jewish woman over an Arab man that shares her beliefs.

And these people are never consistent. You'll never hear them say "Honour killings? FGM? Meh, it's all black on black violence. Those women can't complain because it's their fellow Muslims killing them. Always people of colour, etc".

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 21:40

quantumbutterfly · 20/05/2026 07:51

Over 50 years ago they supported an Afghan resistance to Russian invasion. The French resistance were supported by their allies. The Ukraine resistance is supported by European countries.

What happens when the resistance win is up to the resistance.

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Christina Lamb has reported from Afghanistan since the 1980s and yes, the Mujahideen are first in the line of responsibility

. But the US weren't just supporting 'a resistance movement' : they knew very well, including Reagan, the anti-American, religious fundamentalist nature of the movement.

They also knew they were funding stuff like war-obsessed textbooks with maths problems about killing Soviet soldiers for kids.

Yes, the US do not bear most of the responsibility, but they made some terrible choices. I wonder personally how much Reagan's mental decline affected his decisions.

Borrowerdale · 17/06/2026 21:49

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 21:40

Christina Lamb has reported from Afghanistan since the 1980s and yes, the Mujahideen are first in the line of responsibility

. But the US weren't just supporting 'a resistance movement' : they knew very well, including Reagan, the anti-American, religious fundamentalist nature of the movement.

They also knew they were funding stuff like war-obsessed textbooks with maths problems about killing Soviet soldiers for kids.

Yes, the US do not bear most of the responsibility, but they made some terrible choices. I wonder personally how much Reagan's mental decline affected his decisions.

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Reagan escalated support and brought it into the open but it was Carter who initially set up American support for the Mujahideen

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:20

RingoJuice · 20/05/2026 13:20

@Radarqueen honestly most hunter-gatherer societies are absolutely awful to women. It’s a human norm. Only largely industrialized societies have escaped this. The type of things that go on in tribal societies would make you want to throw up, and I’m not just talking about Pakistan.

We can rise above human nature … but it’s a rare and special thing and must be protected where it exists.

A human norm- why?

Why is human society then innately misogynistic, in your view? How depressing if true.

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:22

Borrowerdale · 17/06/2026 21:49

Reagan escalated support and brought it into the open but it was Carter who initially set up American support for the Mujahideen

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Ah right, that was a terrible decision.. Carter was a good man but naive, also evangelical and perhaps had sympathy in some ways with a religious resistance movement.

Reagan seemed conned. He even compared the mujahideen to the Founding Fathers!

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:24

1dayatatime · 22/05/2026 10:21

There is a great quote that "the only thing Afghans like more than fighting each other is fighting outsiders in Afghanistan ".

The whole place should be labelled "here be dragons " on maps and stay way away from it.

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And leave innocent Afghan women and children to it?

Most of them don't want a society like that, I suspect. The immigration process should prioritise women.

Borrowerdale · 17/06/2026 22:27

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:22

Ah right, that was a terrible decision.. Carter was a good man but naive, also evangelical and perhaps had sympathy in some ways with a religious resistance movement.

Reagan seemed conned. He even compared the mujahideen to the Founding Fathers!

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It was a proxy war with Russia

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:27

Emilesgran · 22/05/2026 14:49

Also, @XDownwiththissortofthingX Japan is not the only successful example. South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan are also examples, as well as Germany of course.

The first 3 weren't democratised by another country though, but from inside. And Singapore is a very restricted form of democracy, at least in some ways.

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:28

Borrowerdale · 17/06/2026 22:27

It was a proxy war with Russia

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Yes, it wasn't primarily about improving Afghanistan or even whether the mujahideen could later be dangerous.

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:35

GaIadriel · 21/05/2026 21:36

Imagine a world whereby women were in power. Instead of spending billions on bombs we’d plow that money for good, to eventually empower all women across the world.

I don't believe this for a second.

The abuse of power generally requires power and there's little reason to think women wouldn't also be violent were they not massively disadvantaged physically and in terms of testosterone/aggression.

I believe female rulers are actually statistically more likely to start wars (admittedly this doesn't happen in a vacuum) and the biggest metastudy to date on DV (which reviewed over 10,000 previous studies) concluded that women commit more DV than men even though they don't kill as often (presumably down to the strength disparity).

And aside from serious criminal violence, which is comparatively rare in day to day life, women seem far more likely to fall out with each other than men. Look at all the threads on here about difficult MILs/colleagues/friends/etc.

Studies have overwhelmingly shown that most women would rather have a male boss than be managed by another female - they have an even stronger preference than men in this regard. Also that women don't want to help other women the more senior they are at work, and that many 'kick away the ladder' or aren't supportive of working mothers "because they should have to make the sacrifices I made".

I've analysed that study about female rulers starting wars more and it concluded that they did,,but because they were attacked more often. They mostly weren't starting wars as the aggressor.

Moreover, on DV, are you talking about the Martin Fiebert study? That study is questionable as it cites stuff like throwing things and doesn't distinguish between reactive and aggressive violence.

When you say this study showed women commit DV more, did it mean physical DV? Or emotional? Emotional I suspect would be much more equal..

You mentioned hormonal differences yourself. It contradicts biology if women leaders start aggressive wars just as much and commit physical DV just as much.

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:38

Never2many · 21/05/2026 11:22

I think that what people need to realise here is that there are no normal men in countries like Afghanistan. Not normal in the way we think anyway.

Rape, brutality, sexual violence, the degradation of women is their normal. It’s how they’ve grown up, it’s their culture brought about by the leadership yes, but that’s something which has never changed.

If there were enough men who wanted change they could bring about a revolution but they haven’t.

There will be people there who care about their families in a less brutal way. But still all men there will see their wives and daughters as less than them. That’s never changed and it never will.

We can’t bring about change in Afghanistan because Afghanistan doesn’t want change.

The girls and women do, of course they do, but having said that so much of this is normal to them as well. The younger generations will have seen some more liberal life while western forces were in there, but the older generations have grown up with it, to them it’s how they’re meant to live.

So it’s the younger generations which need to bring about change, the young girls, and boys, because the boys will grow up into the men of today unless they can be got to first in order t change that.

I suspect attitudes vary with rural vs urban areas, though misogyny is still common in cities there.

It's also worth noting class issues. Rich sexual predators buy girls and boys while poor families starve.

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:39

GaIadriel · 21/05/2026 01:31

They never sell their sons. Or get up and work.

The article describes huge crowds of men standing by the road all day long waiting for work and how only one work offer was made for somebody to carry bricks, which caused a desperate scramble as all the men wanted it. They don't work because there is no work for them.

You shouldn't state your opinions as fact as they're clearly inaccurate. It's no different to when men say things like "women want equal pay but don't want to work as hard as men". Although that's possibly a more defensible statement as it seems there are always a lot more women moaning about 'male dominated jobs' than there are women who are prepared to step up and do these jobs.

And they'd probably sell their sons too if there was a market. Like how some cultures sell male children into servitude - e.g. Africans selling their sons to Arabs. Just like how more men would do sex work if there was a bigger demand for it, which is evident when you look at how many famous bodybuilders have done 'gay for pay' work. If there's demand and money to be made then people will do it.

Expecting a load of goatherders to take on a heavily armed militia is a bit naive. It's like asking why people in concentration camps didn't revolt despite outnumbering their captors a thousand to one. It's illogical to lump all the men together. It's more the Taliban and their subordinates, including men just trying to feed their families any way possible without getting beheaded. I'd imagine it's not unlike the covid period where many were keen to tell on their neighbours.

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This

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:43

RingoJuice · 21/05/2026 06:36

You do know they committed some horrific terrorist attacks in China? Are they just supposed to …. accept that every so often a Uighyer will try to kill innocent Chinese for literally no reason other than existing?

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Does that make it OK for Uyghurs to be forcibly sterilised, held in re education camps where they're raped and tortured, have their culture & religion suppressed?

Many Uyghur women and men in these camps have had no involvement in terrorism at all.

If you support the Chinese government 's policies, that's disgusting.

If you do not, and I misunderstood, I apologise.

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:48

RingoJuice · 21/05/2026 08:18

Why negotiate with the type of people that would kill you for just being a normal Chinese person? These weren’t ’peaceful Muslims’ and as you may or may not know, China has a lot of Muslims that have integrated into society (most famously the Hui) and they are not targeted unless they are involved in extremist groups.

You may think it’s acceptable for Uighers to sporadically kill people in terrorist attacks and I would say many Europeans agree with you because you’ve normalized people dying in random attacks. But you’ve no real solution to this issue, and then you cry when China decides to solve this problem. Because terrorist attacks have indeed become rarer since they’ve started detaining radicalized Islamists.

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Do you support these 'solutions ' then?

Note that a lot of this is against women, not men.

Do you support slavery, rape, forced sterilisation?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2021/02/03/behind-the-camps-gates-rape-and-sexual-violence-against-uyghur-women/

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/against-their-will-the-situation-in-xinjiang

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n3124

https://xjdp.aspi.org.au/explainers/sterilizations-and-mandatory-birth-control-in-xinjiang/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53220713

Behind The Camps’ Gates: Rape And Sexual Violence Against Uyghur Women

Reports of rape and sexual violence followed. According to a new report by the BBC, “Women in China's ‘re-education’ camps for Uyghurs have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2021/02/03/behind-the-camps-gates-rape-and-sexual-violence-against-uyghur-women/

Jane379 · 17/06/2026 22:55

RingoJuice · 21/05/2026 08:18

Why negotiate with the type of people that would kill you for just being a normal Chinese person? These weren’t ’peaceful Muslims’ and as you may or may not know, China has a lot of Muslims that have integrated into society (most famously the Hui) and they are not targeted unless they are involved in extremist groups.

You may think it’s acceptable for Uighers to sporadically kill people in terrorist attacks and I would say many Europeans agree with you because you’ve normalized people dying in random attacks. But you’ve no real solution to this issue, and then you cry when China decides to solve this problem. Because terrorist attacks have indeed become rarer since they’ve started detaining radicalized Islamists.

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It' also worth noting that the Hui are partly tolerated because they are ethnically Han Chinese, Uyghurs are not, though there are other factors including terrorism of some.

But do you think those female Uyghurs are lying about being raped and sterilised? That the camps and slavery are lies?

Or are you saying they're OK?

That to eradicate terrorism, WE should enslave, rape, sterilise, destroy religious sites, detain unjustly?

Do you really think all the imprisoned Uyghurs are 'radicalized men'?

Do you think it's only 'leftist idiots' who object to that?

And these things?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/03/the-nightmare-of-uyghur-families-separated-by-repression/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-56454609

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/25/thousands-of-xinjiang-mosques-destroyed-damaged-china-report-finds

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/un-experts-urge-china-end-repression-uyghur-and-cultural-expression

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/abortions-08172020144036.html

Trump disagrees, and he's hardly a leftist idiot. So does Fox News.

https://nypost.com/2026/05/09/world-news/trumps-visit-to-beijing-brings-hope-for-sister-of-uyghur-man-detained-in-chinese-internment-camp/

https://www.foxnews.com/world/mother-recounts-horrors-brutal-chinese-detention-camp-where-infant-son-died

Exclusive | Trump’s visit to Beijing brings hope for sister of Uyghur man detained in Chinese internment camp

Ekpar Asat disappeared after returning to Xinjiang from a trip to Washington in 2016, where he’d flown to attend a State Department program for young leaders.

https://nypost.com/2026/05/09/world-news/trumps-visit-to-beijing-brings-hope-for-sister-of-uyghur-man-detained-in-chinese-internment-camp/