Comments on: How to Address Child Exploitation?

By: MILNEWS.ca

MILNEWS.ca — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:29:22 +0000

Curious about your experience on this: someone with WAY more experience than myself pointed this out when it comes to how sensitive it is to deal with this culturally-ingrained issue:
“Try pressuring one of your friends to stop doing something they hide but you know they do; then try to get a Police Officer to accost them about it…”
I agree 100% that you can’t build public trust in a security force that does this sort of thing, but I can also understand the potential for ugly situations from soldiers attempting to, in the words of Canada’s Defence Minister, “prevent”, “pre-empt” or “intervene” in such situations.

By: B

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:30:50 +0000

>What’s interesting—and especially distressing—about Afghanistan is the prevalence of child rape among the U.S.-funded Afghan National Security Forces.

You sound surprised by the fact that when a bunch of Afghans got BDUs and some rudimentary training, they did not immediately turn into the Iron Chefs of pounding vaj. Besides Mr. Mackey-like Powerpoint presentations on the evils of pederasty, what solutions are there to this problem?

By: Bruno

Bruno — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:29:46 +0000

Canada… yet another country Roman Polanski can’t set foot on…

By: BruceR

BruceR — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:46:17 +0000

It wasn’t KAF. The prime reason being Afghans aren’t allowed on KAF.

There is no evidence that I have seen that the Canadian military have “buried” anything. The allegation that they were overly worried about the media rests solely on one reporter’s headline-seeking spin on the fact that a public affairs office took the time to do up some talking points on the issue. Um, that’s their job: by itself it doesn’t indicate a coverup ,surely. (Note the article does not quote any Canadian officer saying they are concerned about the media.)

As the links clearly indicate, the initial allegation related to a reported incident at PB Wilson in 2006. It was investigated and the one witness, who had left his tour early due to operational stress, was judged to be wholly unreliable in his testimony. Supporting contemporaneous allegations were from a couple chaplains who said unnamed soldiers had told them stuff, also wholly unconfirmable hearsay in whole or in part. That case was thrown out for a complete lack of evidence, whatever the lead witness is saying to any media who will listen to him now.

In my experience as an ANA mentor 2008-09, all possible reports of sexual abuse were reported to the chain of command. No Afghans were ever caught in the act that I am aware of, so these largely consisted of concerns that young teens were being allowed/encouraged to hang around ANSF facilities. This behaviour was discouraged through the ANSF chain.

By: Steve C

Steve C — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:41:32 +0000

The story most repeated throughout Afghanistan is that the first move of the Talibs was the settling (by violence) of a dispute between two Kandahar commanders about who “owned” a 10 year old boy.

The penalties for rape (whether of a male or female of any age) under the Taliban regime were very severe and put a stop to some pretty awful practices.

But now they have democracy. Hurrah