Sex Slaves & Pedophilia in the Afghan Army--Sex With Young Boys Common and Tolerated-US Media Asleep

A good friend of mine is a member of the United States military and has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan several times. As a matter of fact, he's getting ready for another deployment soon. During one 18 month deployment in Afghanistan, his duties consisted of special forces work. He trained their military, police, and was in close contact with the citizenry. During one occasion he saved the life of an Afghan military officer and in turn, became sort of a hero to many of the locals. In short, he was in the know on what was occurring in and outside of the military.

When he returned and we talked about some of his experiences in the "Stan" as he called it, a few things stood out. Firefights are accepted in a war zone and those did not surprise me but what did surprise, or actually shocked me, was some of the stories he told me about sexual behavior. The first thing that surprised was the saying he said was used on a relatively common basis by many of the locals. The saying was "that men are for sex and women are for making children". This surprised me because I thought the vast majority of the people there were quite religious and I assumed that homosexuality would be against there tenants.

Homosexuality in itself did not concern me as I feel that whatever someone else wants to do in their personal lives is their business as long as it does not harm me or others. The surprise for me was more so because I keep informed with world affairs, and I had no clue about a lifestyle that according to my trusted friend, was relatively common. However, I was certainly shocked when I read something recently from a New York Times report that said Afghanistan was expected to sign an agreement with the United Nations to stop the recruitment of children into its police force and ban the common practice of boys being used as sex slaves by military commanders.

Doing further research, I found other credible sources reporting on the issue. Media Corp as an example reports that, "With the agreement on an action plan to combat the problem, the government will for the first time officially acknowledge the problem of child sex slaves. As part of the Afghan tradition of "bacha bazi", literally "boy play", boys as young as nine are dressed as girls and trained to dance for male audiences, then prostituted in an auction to the highest bidder. Many powerful men, particularly commanders in the military and the police, keep such boys, often dressed in uniforms, as constant companions for sexual purposes".

As I said earlier, there are credible reports of this being factual but yet I found it amazing, so I decided to triple check its accuracy. I called my life-long military professional friend and asked him. He confirmed that it is indeed a problem there and also that pedophilia was common and tolerated, mainly in the southern outskirts. I asked him why no one had really reported on it in the United States. His expertise is not in the media by any stretch of the imagination, but his thoughts were that no one really cares. He thought because it had nothing to do with the major problems of the war, he assumed people, and that includes the media simply did not report on it. Wow!

Young kids being used as sex slaves by some Afghan military commanders and pedophilia being common and tolerated!  Where is CNN? Where is FOX News? Where is The New York Times other than a buried story on page nine? Can it be true that in America no one really cares about little kids in Afghanistan? Is it because the kids are poor or their life expectancy is around 50, that people write them off.  A child in Afghanistan has the same potential for anything a child in the US could accomplish, with the right help and opportunity.

I'm not sure who I am more angry with, the Afghan's who do this, those who condone it, or our media who have dropped the ball big-time.