Our view: Use U.S. clout to help stop Afghan child sexual abuse
An American servicemember, serving alongside Afghan security forces, “heard the sounds of Afghan men and boys screaming in ‘ what sounded like sex.’ ”
This graphic detail is contained in a watchdog report released this month despite Pentagon efforts at one point to keep the document secret until 2042.
Doubtless the high command’s concern was the report’s conclusion: that Congress consider making it tougher for the U.S. military to look the other way when Afghan allies molest children or commit other human rights offenses.
It’s a dark reality among the most sinister and brutal Afghan security personnel that young men and boys are sexually abused in a culture where casual interaction with women is forbidden as taboo. The stain of child abuse was one reason the Islamist Taliban, with its implacable crackdown on this practice, found traction among rural villagers during its takeover of Afghanistan in 1996.
The persistence of bacha bazi, or “boy play,” reflects badly on a U.S.backed central government that forever struggles to demonstrate legitimacy and control — most recently in the wake of several Kabul attacks, including on a hotel where 22 died and the detonation of an ambulance filled with explosives that left 103 dead.
After The New York Times reported in 2015 that bacha bazi was “rampant” in Afghanistan, and that U.S. soldiers were told to ignore it, 93 members of Congress sought an investigation by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
One U.S. special operations officer told The Times about beating up an American-backed militia commander who kept a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. Federal law prohibits U.S. funding of foreign security forces guilty of gross human rights violations.
The inspector general’s findings found no evidence that the Pentagon condoned this despicable behavior or instructed troops to ignore it, but the failure to provide adequate training and guidance might have confused servicemembers about what to do when they see it.
Moreover, thousands of U.S. contractors working with Afghan security units are not required to report child abuse by Afghan security forces.
The inspector general found lackluster enforcement of Congress’ human rights provisions. For the 12 Afghan security units guilty of gross human rights violations, the Pentagon used a loophole in the law to cut financial support only minimally.
Congress should follow the inspector general’s suggestion and close that loophole.
The Pentagon may argue that success on the battlefield outweighs the need to strictly guard against gross human rights abuses such as the sexual exploitation of children. If that’s true, we might ask, then what are we fighting for in Afghanistan?