U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan have been given orders to ignore the sexual abuse and rape of young boys by Afghan police, a new report says.
Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr is quoted in the New York Times as saying that he and fellow soldiers stationed in Afghanistan could hear police officers sexually abusing boys at the base they were staying in.
"At night we can hear them screaming, but we're not allowed to do anything about it", he said.
Nytimes.com reports:
Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally "boy play," and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militias to help hold territory against the Taliban.
But soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages — and doing little when they began abusing children.
"The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights," said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave.
"But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me."
The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it.
After the beating, the Army relieved Captain Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan. He has since left the military.
Four years later, the Army is also trying to forcibly retire Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, a Special Forces member who joined Captain Quinn in beating up the commander.
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