written by Mary Chastain
Wednesday April 6, 2016
Afghanistan intelligence operatives have discovered rampant sexual abuse of minors at a Taliban-run prison in southern Helmand province.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) arrested four suspects in the southern Helmand province. Taliban group leader Mullah Mazlumyar ran the prison in question.
The authorities released 14 civilians from the prison.
Sexual abuse allegations in Afghanistan are widespread, both against Taliban members and Afghan soldiers. Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland faces discipline because he confronted an Afghan local police (ALP) commander accused of raping a 12-year-old boy. Fox News reports:
The 2011 incident occurred at the remote outpost where Martland was stationed. The boy and his mother showed up at camp, and the boy showed the Green Berets where his hands had been tied. A medic took him to a back room for an examination with an interpreter, who told them the boy had been raped by a man identified as Afghani Police commander Abdul Rahman.Rahman allegedly beat the boy’s mother for reporting the crime after learning that they went to the Army outpost. This led Martland and team leader Daniel Quinn to confront Rahman.
Martland faces discharge, but the army delayed the decision until May 1.
Col. Steve Johnson said in response to this case that the United States soldiers should tolerate Afghan customs, implying that sexual abuse of minors is a cultural act.
“You cannot try to impose American values and American norms onto the Afghan culture because they’re completely different. … We can report and we can encourage them,” Col. Johnson told The News Tribune. “We do not have any power or the ability to use our hands to compel them to be what we see as morally better.”
The Afghan practice of bacha bazi, or “boy play,” has made a resurgence in recent years. Men use orphans and poor young males to become their “dancing boys” as forms of entertainment. These exploitations often result in rape and sexual abuse of the vulnerable young males.
The older men will use males as young as ten years old.
Abdul, who did not provide his real name, showed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) how he dances.
“I used to work as a street trader,” he said. “When I saw the money which dancers got I stopped working on the streets. I was really happy when I started getting this kind of money. It was a lot. I started dancing because of my family’s bad financial situation.”
Afghanistan has outlawed bacha bazi, but authorities do little to enforce the law. Some videos show police officers participating in the dance events.
Breitbart News
written by Pamela Geller
October 5, 2015
Recently it was charged that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan were telling American servicemen to ignore child rape by Afghan Muslim soldiers.
I recently received confirmation in the form of an explosive and chilling letter from a retired American serviceman, Benjamin Baird, a former Staff Sergeant, 2-23 IN of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
I am a medically retired Army infantryman. I was a platoon sergeant during my last tour to Afghanistan in 2012-2013.We worked with a local commander of the Afghan border patrol who also was a known child molester. I would tell the officers around me that they should take a stand and either arrest him or refuse to work with him at worst. There was, indeed, encouragement from higher ups to ignore these problems. I always said that child rape by a military commander was a war crime, and if I was ever on a mission with this “man” I would have to be restrained. Needless to say, any interaction with me and the rapist was avoided by my leadership.The war criminal was named Haji Jinohn. May be spelled incorrectly. I will gladly testify to the fact that US commanders ignore the rape of children by their Afghan counterparts. It is a sickening act and sends bad messages to our allies.In Afghan culture, the rape of young boys is actually not a big deal. It isn’t frowned upon, but neither is it openly praised. In fact, a report came across my desk once that stated that a young boy was being raped by a police commander and his henchmen in Southern Afghanistan/Kandahar province. This boy eventually poisoned all of the policemen working at this outpost, then subsequently shot them before leaving the outpost and joining the Taliban. This report was classified at the time.Again, I will gladly testify for you on any of this. I would like to be clear, though, that I do not wish to discredit ISAF involvement in Afghanistan, rather I wish to expose the U.S. sanctioning of child abuse and rape by remaining silent and failing to prosecute these war crimes. Rape is not a cultural tradition, it is a universal evil, and I was astounded by our indifference to the subject.Finally, thank you for the work you do in highlighting these atrocities. I am ashamed that I was somehow indirectly complicit in all of this. But perhaps together we can make things right by building awareness.
I hope so. This is Obama’s policy, and it’s been going on for years. Last month I reported that the U.S. Army kicked out a decorated Green Beret after an 11-year Special Forces career, after he got in trouble for shoving an Afghan police commander accused of raping a boy and beating up his mother when she reported the incident.
This heinous practice, often justified by reference to Islamic texts, is called bacha bazi — “boy play.” For those who try to stop it, it is lethal. Readers of my website, PamelaGeller.com, are long familiar with the horrible murder of American hero Lance Cpl. Buckley. His murderer, in one of a string of insider attacks, was Aynoddin, the “tea boy” of Afghan District Police Chief Sarwar Jan. District Police Chief Jan, who supplied the assault rifle used in the murder, most likely helped plan and certainly approved the attack, was detained. Chief Jan was released, and the Obama administration allegedly turned Aynoddin back over to the Afghans. Buckley’s killer got off scot-free. I reported on this back in 2012 and have spoken and appeared many times with with Cpl. Buckley’s father several times. Watch the videos here and here.
The murder of Lance Cpl. Buckley is the fault of Barack Obama and the suicidal policies he is following in Afghanistan. American troops should stand for American values. If they aren’t doing that, what is the point of our being there at all? The Obama military’s sanction of bacha bazi must end, and the United States must once again become the protector of human rights for all.
READ MORE about this news from the New York Times: US Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies
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