Where are the progressives? Where are the feminists? Where are the activists?
In Canada, the Liberal and NDP opposition are worried that Taliban detainees/terrorists might have been roughed up a bit by Afghan authorities after they had been transferred to an Afghan prison. In fact, they worry so much, they hold hearings on the alleged abuses and demand the release of thousands of government documents. And, they make unsubstantiated allegations about war crimes committed by our troops.
Yet, all the while this so-called “concern” is going on in a parliamentary committee, we are now learning about real abuse, physical, mental and sexual—not against detainees, but innocent young Afghani female children. Mullahs and war lords in Afghanistan call it marriage. I call it forced rape by dirty old men and the confinement of under-age children, girls who aren’t yet women but are still expected to go through pregnancy and birth.
And, when some girls manage to get up the guts to try to escape their fate, what happens to them? Are they hidden away in shelters? Sometimes. Usually, they are returned to their abusers and lashed with as much force as an adult male can muster.
Canada’s opposition MP’s should be more concerned about what is happening to these young women who are completely at the mercy of their parents and tormenters, rather than detainees who make a choice to fight our troops with the intent to kill them.
Read this and weep, not for Afghan detainees but for the female children and young women barely out of their teens. Truly, this is why our military is in Afghanistan. Lest the progressives, the activists and the feminists forget!
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerim/12567680/
