John Whitehead's Commentary
Selling Children into Slavery: Shouldn't the U.S. Help?
The Bush Administration wants Congress to approve $10.6 billion for security and reconstruction in Afghanistan, but here's the problem: we already have a pretty good idea of how that money is going to be spent. As recent reports indicate--and based on the U.S. government's track record thus far, most of the funds will go toward contractors and private companies that will make a killing on the contracts and have very little to show for it in the end.
It's doubtful that the money will go where it's most needed--to help alleviate the suffering of the almost 2.5 million drought-stricken Afghan people caught up in the escalating war between the Taliban and the United States.
According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghanistan is at the bottom of the global poverty scale. In fact, the country is the fourth lowest in the world for living standards. The Afghan people have already suffered through Soviet occupation and a fundamentalist Taliban regime. Now, they're trying to survive an American occupation and a two-year drought that has resulted in crop losses of 80 to 100%. For these unfortunates, especially the women and children, the situation is daily becoming more desperate as families find themselves forced to choose between abject starvation and selling their children into slavery.
For some, the decision to sell their daughters is, as the charitable group Global Ministries reports, "a drastic attempt to offer a child enough food, warmth, money and maybe the possibility of education and a better life somewhere safer and better off than the war-torn, drought-ravaged Afghanistan of recent years."
But for others, it is a question of economics and survival. As one villager explained, "There is widespread poverty. We have to sell off our children to survive. We are not proud of it, but we have to do it." For example, when a poppy farmer had his crops plowed under as part of the Afghan government's efforts to combat the drug trade (the poppies are used to manufacture opium), he handed his 10-year-old daughter, Zeva, over to a moneylender as repayment for his 50,000 afghani loan--roughly equivalent to $1,000.
Najibullah, an Afghan farmer with little crops due to drought conditions, sold his 8-year-old daughter, Somaya, to a 22-year-old man from a local village for $3,000. Najibullah had already used the man's $600 deposit to buy warm clothes and food for his family.
Ten-year-old Azizgul was sold in marriage to a 13-year-old boy. Her mother, Sahatgul, claims to have no choice but to sell all her daughters if necessary--at younger and younger ages. "We don't have enough food and the bride price will enable us to buy food," she remarked. "Our daughters are our only economic asset."
Being sold into marriage isn't the only way children are suffering in Afghanistan. According to various U.S. State Department reports, Afghanistan is a source country for children trafficked for the purposes of "sexual exploitation, forced marriage, labor, domestic servitude, slavery, crime, and the removal of body organs. Since early 2003, there have been increasing reports of children reported as missing throughout the country. It is also reported that impoverished Afghan families have sold their children into forced sexual exploitation, marriage, and labor."
The plight of the Afghan people can be summed up in one word: desperation. As desperate as they are for food, safety and lives not ravaged by war and poverty, it's little wonder that Afghanistan remains a breeding ground for terrorists and terrorist activities. But democracy starts at the kitchen table. In other words, you won't get people to start thinking with their heads, politically or otherwise, until you can get them to stop thinking with their stomachs.
The United States has the wherewithal to do something about these problems--and not just by throwing money around. Thus far, the total cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan amounts to roughly $400 billion. Just the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers a whopping $8 billion a month. Clearly, siphoning more money over to build more roads, as President Bush has proposed, will not fix the problem.
So what's the answer? For one, we need to start thinking along more humanitarian lines instead of plotting ways to fatten the pocketbooks of military contractors. Why not assign more of the occupying American troops to humanitarian relief and send them into villages to distribute needed food, clothing and medical relief? Why not send over some agricultural experts to help the farmers develop sustainable crops?
Europeans who travel to this country invariably tell me that America is known as the greatest Christian nation in the world. Central to the teachings of Jesus Christ was compassion for the poor and the destitute. It's high time that America started acting like the Christian country others believe it to be. This means that we must begin showing compassion because, if ever there has been a country that needs compassion, it's Afghanistan.
It's doubtful that the money will go where it's most needed--to help alleviate the suffering of the almost 2.5 million drought-stricken Afghan people caught up in the escalating war between the Taliban and the United States.
According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghanistan is at the bottom of the global poverty scale. In fact, the country is the fourth lowest in the world for living standards. The Afghan people have already suffered through Soviet occupation and a fundamentalist Taliban regime. Now, they're trying to survive an American occupation and a two-year drought that has resulted in crop losses of 80 to 100%. For these unfortunates, especially the women and children, the situation is daily becoming more desperate as families find themselves forced to choose between abject starvation and selling their children into slavery.
For some, the decision to sell their daughters is, as the charitable group Global Ministries reports, "a drastic attempt to offer a child enough food, warmth, money and maybe the possibility of education and a better life somewhere safer and better off than the war-torn, drought-ravaged Afghanistan of recent years."
But for others, it is a question of economics and survival. As one villager explained, "There is widespread poverty. We have to sell off our children to survive. We are not proud of it, but we have to do it." For example, when a poppy farmer had his crops plowed under as part of the Afghan government's efforts to combat the drug trade (the poppies are used to manufacture opium), he handed his 10-year-old daughter, Zeva, over to a moneylender as repayment for his 50,000 afghani loan--roughly equivalent to $1,000.
Najibullah, an Afghan farmer with little crops due to drought conditions, sold his 8-year-old daughter, Somaya, to a 22-year-old man from a local village for $3,000. Najibullah had already used the man's $600 deposit to buy warm clothes and food for his family.
Ten-year-old Azizgul was sold in marriage to a 13-year-old boy. Her mother, Sahatgul, claims to have no choice but to sell all her daughters if necessary--at younger and younger ages. "We don't have enough food and the bride price will enable us to buy food," she remarked. "Our daughters are our only economic asset."
Being sold into marriage isn't the only way children are suffering in Afghanistan. According to various U.S. State Department reports, Afghanistan is a source country for children trafficked for the purposes of "sexual exploitation, forced marriage, labor, domestic servitude, slavery, crime, and the removal of body organs. Since early 2003, there have been increasing reports of children reported as missing throughout the country. It is also reported that impoverished Afghan families have sold their children into forced sexual exploitation, marriage, and labor."
The plight of the Afghan people can be summed up in one word: desperation. As desperate as they are for food, safety and lives not ravaged by war and poverty, it's little wonder that Afghanistan remains a breeding ground for terrorists and terrorist activities. But democracy starts at the kitchen table. In other words, you won't get people to start thinking with their heads, politically or otherwise, until you can get them to stop thinking with their stomachs.
The United States has the wherewithal to do something about these problems--and not just by throwing money around. Thus far, the total cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan amounts to roughly $400 billion. Just the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers a whopping $8 billion a month. Clearly, siphoning more money over to build more roads, as President Bush has proposed, will not fix the problem.
So what's the answer? For one, we need to start thinking along more humanitarian lines instead of plotting ways to fatten the pocketbooks of military contractors. Why not assign more of the occupying American troops to humanitarian relief and send them into villages to distribute needed food, clothing and medical relief? Why not send over some agricultural experts to help the farmers develop sustainable crops?
Europeans who travel to this country invariably tell me that America is known as the greatest Christian nation in the world. Central to the teachings of Jesus Christ was compassion for the poor and the destitute. It's high time that America started acting like the Christian country others believe it to be. This means that we must begin showing compassion because, if ever there has been a country that needs compassion, it's Afghanistan.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
Publication Guidelines / Reprint Permission
John W. Whitehead’s weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact staff@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.
