BBC News, Afghanistan, Selling Children To Survive…

[SuperLemonCrush]

Link This is the second or third time this has reported on by the BBC - I came on to see if there were any comments as find it so disturbing.
It is reported in such a “neutral” way but it seems like this “selling a daughter” is the “feature not a bug” of women’s status in the Afghanistan. I have never heard this reported from any other famine-struck country - because it’s usually the mothers of the families that are interviewed?
Of course it is a terrible situation but I feel the reporting is complicit to offer this to us as “poor man, he has to sell a child” (the fact that it is going to be the girls that are sold isn’t even in the headline).

The bbc are a disgrace

afghanistan is one of the few countries in the world that legally has slavery.

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

in other countries it is not legal to sell children into slavery.

It's a strange article. It suggests that, due to poverty, these very unfortunate fathers are having to sell their 'children'.

But when you look closer you can see that all the 'children' being sold are girls. Their brothers aren't. It doesn't state who they're being sold to or what for, when we all know what it's for.

And since when does poverty result in you selling your children? It's a disgusting practice but the fathers are being treated as victims.

There's also nonsense in the article - at one point a father is quoted as saying he came home from work and had to sell his daughter because he doesn't have a job. What work did he come home from then?

“And since when does poverty result in you selling your children? It's a disgusting practice but the fathers are being treated as victims”
Thank you Wild Energy, perfectly put! I am going to make a complaint and hope it’s ok if I use your succinct summing up?

The moment I saw that headline I knew that the only children being sold are girls. But of course the BBC can't bear to acknowledge sex reality.

Agreed.
You have to go a long way down that article to find a hint of why aid has been cut. 'However, the Taliban's own policies, particularly its restrictions against women, are also a key reason why donors are turning away.' And that's it. Nothing about the actual restrictions: can't go to secondary school, are barred from many jobs, can't enter parks, gyms etc, and on and on.

Admittedly Trump closed down USAID, but I wonder how much aid it would be channelling to Afghanistan, given the Taliban's politics, if it still existed.

I have made a complaint….

This barbaric practice was going on in Afghanistan long before USAID was put in or pulled out. It’s ingrained in this barbaric culture.

Totally agree OP.
And I also find it very lacking in nuance, blaming Trump. It's a 'look over there' tactic. The man's an utter disgrace and an absolute paradigm of everything that is wrong with the political class, but Afghanistan has been a basket case forever, and misogyny has been around forever, and whilst Trump has probably, in the short term, made the situation worse, it was basically like this long before he was in power, and will be like this long after he's out of power.

Also no analysis of how this sudden removal of women from work and education might have affected the economy, or turned girls into a costly burden that can only be relieved if they are turned into a commodity.

There's an update at the end of the article. I wonder if it was added in response to some of the complaints? However it doesn't go far enough: the tone of the article is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the fathers, not to the girls and the horrific fate they face.

Update: This article has been amended to explain why daughters are more often sold than sons in Afghanistan. Additional context has been added to make clear that Saeed's daughter Shaiqa was sold to his relative for marriage, and to include an additional quote from Saeed in which he describes how he came to his decision.

'sold to his relative for marriage' i.e. Shaiqa is a child who was forced to marry an older relative.

Marry a relative? Fuck sake. We all know that she's being sold into slavery of the most unimaginable kind.

Here’s an article from 2016 (so plenty of US and EU and other aid around then) about girls being sold into “marriage” as settlement of debts and the like.
https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/rights-freedom/reality-check-no-justice-for-women-in-ghor-province/

The BBC need to stop gaslighting us that it’s anything to do with aid really? Unless aid is so munificent that it’s going to stop men contracting debts, the real problem is that daughters are seen as currency.

I have complained too. I can't believe that anyone could write this article as if the fathers are the victims, when it is clearly small girls who are.

Brendan O'Neill's take on the BBC’s framing of this

https://archive.ph/JYcJg

https://spectator.com/article/why-does-the-bbc-think-afghan-men-are-selling-their-daughters/?edition=us

Sadly that is so often ignored.

This has been going on for decades, probably even longer. The BBC previously ran a good series of articles on Afghanistan's Poppy Brides, the girls who'd been used as collateral for loans for opium crops. They were sold by their fathers when the crops were destroyed by the US military counternarcotics efforts around 2001-2005 IIRC. I can't find the articles from back then, but it was definitely the girls that were considered the victims, not their fathers. The change of tone, and the lack of depth of the analysis is very depressing.

Thanks for linking and THANK YOU Brendan O'Neill.

The BBC is an organisation that excuses and gets very close to advocating for paedophilia and is insanely misogynistic and this article only cements that opinion formed over many years. Savile was a feature not a bug.

I have tried to complain again and again and get word salad back. They need to be scrapped. This sort of article has no place in a decent society.

It is frankly terrifying that someone who is paid for out of what is essentially a public tax thought it was acceptable to frame the slavery and rape of little girls in this way and not utterly condemn the men and the mindset and the Taliban government that means this is allowed.

Other things missing from this article - rates of death for male and female children (bet the latter is far higher), fact that women will never receive medical care in Afghanistan no matter how much aid is given. Aid agencies have had to remove female staff due to Taliban law, it is law in the country that women cannot be medically treated. So the aid issue is such a red herring, There could be billions given in aid and the Taliban would use it all, and women and girls would still die.

And then we're called 'racist' for not wanting men who think this is ok coming to our country. OF COURSE they will pose a risk to our children if they'll do this to their own daughters.

TL:DR - fucks sake BBC you nonce enablers.

Taliban edict on female aid staff pushes Afghan women dee...

The ban on female aid workers. Well, there are still 3 at the time of this article. Totally inadequate and still leaves virtually 100% of women who need the services without care. I wonder how long those women staff last in that job, it must be totally soul destroying.

I find it fascinating that they gloss over the loss of women's right to work 'restrictions' and then they specifically picture a female nurse who is not wearing a burqa - hey there's one at least so that must all be ok then? It's misinformation I think. The burqa is mandatory for HCPs in parts of Afghanistan which obviously affects their ability to do the job - maybe this could have been given a mention?. Taliban’s Mandatory Burqa in Herat Assaults Women’s Autonomy | Human Rights Watch

Piss poor biased, misogynistic, pro-paedophile journalism.

To be honest what would be really nice is an article about to what extent women truly are banned from being HCPs and of those allowed, how many there are total and how many of them have to wear a burqa. Or some reporting about how many aid agency female staff have been forced to leave.

In the context, and in light of what aid agencies are reporting (that their female staff are being banned from working) I do think the photo used does not represent the truth necessarily and is selective at best.

I used to admire the BBC. Thank you Cake for the very different article and to Brendan O’Neill for seeing women and girls as actual human beings.

That is important because that is the crux of this. Women aren’t seen as properly human and aren’t allowed to engage economically so they are seen as a drain on household resources. Since they can’t work and earn, the only way to raise money from a woman or girl is to sell her. One less mouth to feed and more money in the household.

Evil.

Also no mention of the mothers of these poor girls. Where are they? What do they think about their daughters being sold? Are these men all single dads? What exactly is going on here?

Completely agree @nicecupoftea.It’s the culture of not allowing girls to be educated and work and earn that means their fathers sell them. Not Trump