Daily Times

The heartbreaking stories of helpless, poor and vulnerable girls and women of Afghanistan are making headlines in the print and electronic media across Europe these days. Afghan women continue to be victims of domestic and sexual violence by warlords, war criminals and private militia commanders. During the last three months, I have been receiving e-mails from some helpless Afghan women about their heartbreaking stories of forced marriages. In their e-mails, they complain that rape is not considered as a serious crime in the country and if a woman reports a rape case to the police, an investigation begins about her character.

One of the e-mails I received last week from Takhar province describes the story of two small girls and a woman raped by armed men on June 15, 2011. A six-year-old girl was also among the victims. However, three weeks ago, a 15-year-old girl was gang-raped by five armed men in Kalifgan district. An Afghan human rights official told Pajhwok News that last year more than 2,765 cases of violence against women and girls were reported to the rights watchdog while Fawzia Amini of the Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs revealed that some 6,765 cases of violence against women and girls were registered in 2010.

Three decades of civil war, foreign intervention, poverty, unemployment, militarisation, ignorance, the knife and gun culture and political rivalries are factors making the women and children of Afghanistan vulnerable to trafficking, prostitution and the play boy business. Afghanistan shares borders with Iran, Pakistan, China and the Central Asian States and offers an environment for facilitating the business of trafficking in women, children and drugs.

A majority of Afghan children, women and girls trafficked in and outside the country is being sold in the local prostitution markets or into the hands of wealthy individuals, warlords and private militia commanders. UNICEF in its report revealed that 57 percent of Afghan marriages involve girls under the age of 16. Insecurity, fear of kidnapping and rape has also prompted many families to force their young daughters into marriage.

In northern Afghanistan, and in parts of the southern provinces, the same story is repeated. In various districts of the northern provinces, poor and poverty-stricken girls and children are being kidnapped and sold into prostitution. Unemployed and poor young boys have also been subjected to trafficking for male prostitution, forced labour and the play boy business. The tradition of child marriage has long been practiced in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s civil war left hundred of thousands of women widowed and young children orphaned. As matrimonial life is very expensive across the country, specifically in Paktika and Paktia provinces, the price for a young girl has been fixed at more than three million in the Afghan currency.

Education for girls in these provinces is considered to be a great sin, while sports and other hobbies are not allowed. A majority of Afghan girls become pregnant before they reach physical maturity because they do not know about the family laws of the country. The Afghan Civil Law sets the minimum age for marriage at 16 for girls and 18 for boys.

A heartbreaking story of an Afghan girl who was sold again and again at the hands of criminal mafia groups is indicative of the increasing violence against women. A young girl of poor parents, Benazir was 12 years old when she was forcefully married to an illiterate man. She remained with him for nine years and had four children. After nine years, her husband sold her to a human trafficker. He kept her for a month and sold her to another man; two months later she was sold to a fourth man and after a year she was resold to a criminal. What happened to Benazir finally nobody knows but she is not the only victim of war criminals in her country. There are thousands of women and girls in Afghanistan whose lives are in danger. Cases of rape are in the thousands, torture and domestic violence in northern Afghanistan is being encouraged by mafia groups.

Recently, a teenage girl was kidnapped, tortured and raped by a warlord in Balkh province. This was a great shame for her family. Her parents decided to kill her but a local NGO saved her life. Brothels in Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh, Laghman, Samangan and Kundoz provinces openly campaign for young girls. As they have strong support from the war criminal partners and corrupt officials in the police department, they freely run their businesses. Neither have they taught the people about the HIV virus nor AIDs. Consequently, over 100,000 people are suffering from the HIV virus in Afghanistan.

Another profitable business that has attracted thousands of criminal elements and warlords is playing with boys or “having sex with boys”. This is an old and ugly Afghan tradition. Orphan and poor children are picked up from the streets or purchased from their parents who agree to sell them to those wealthy males who are fond of homosexuality. The parents normally agree on a “good price” for their child. This is neither illegal in Afghanistan nor the police show any interest to intercept it. In Kandahar, and parts of northern Afghanistan, Afghan married and unmarried men love boys who are roughly 15 to 20-years-old. The price of a young and beautiful boy has been fixed at up to 100,000 Afghanis. “Keeping a beautiful boy has become a custom in Kandahar now,” a Kandahari man once told me. When we study the poetry books in Kandahar or in any province in the north, we come across many poems about homosexuality.

Male prostitution has not been considered a harmful business in Afghanistan since decades. Keeping a boy or Bacha Bereesh (a boy without beard) is not illegal and thousands of wealthy people, businessmen and criminal gangs are involved with the play boy business across the country since long. After the US invasion in 2001, sex trafficking in the country became a profitable business. One of my police friends recently told me that more than 3,000 families in Jowzjan, Mazar, Kundoz, Herat, Samangan and Faryab provinces have been involved in prostitution since the last 10 years. The main factor behind this business he told me is poverty and unemployment.

The writer is the author of Afghanistan Beyond 2014 and Punjabi Taliban. He can be reached at zaimusakhan222@gmail.com