Pritam Sardar
I was intending to write a concise article on the need to protect infants of every gender, sex, sexuality, nationality, race, tribe etc. who were not evacuated.
But I could not fathom any possibility of a practical measure or to suggest ideas to formulate such steps that safeguards children. Partly the reason is international reportage that has been covering all forms of media since the fall of Kabul, the incessant brutalities hurled by the Taliban is enough to extinguish any glimmer of hope of practical and fruitful engagement with such brute forces, who do not adhere to any (neither eastern nor western) forms of justice or code of conduct.
Here I will try to briefly state my concerns.
Mainstream discourse rarely transcends beyond human rights violations of women and religious minority communities of Afghanistan.
Women have always occupied the central stage of U.S.’s rhetoric regarding the mission to Afghanistan, and rightly so, but by exclusively constraining views on women it overshadows violence of another brutal kind inflicted on gender basis, that is the institutionalized mass rape of pre-pubescent males in form of ‘bacha bazi’. A cultural practice co opted by warlords, men with power and influence into a heinous practice of sexually abusing male children.
Interestingly the Taliban were opposed to this practice and gained their support in various regions of Afghanistan by stopping it. U.S. policies were largely nonchalance on ‘bacha bazi’ and other gross human injustices in a bid to gain support from the elite Afghans some of whom were deeply involved in such practices.
But it can be inferred from various instances that even if Taliban rescues some children from bacha bazi, they will never get back to a “normal life”. These children need proper psychological treatments which is safe to assume the Taliban or the Afghans under the Taliban regime cannot provide.
If one looks at the demographics of Afghanistan it presents an unique case, it’s 55.3% of the population falls under the age group of 15–64 years, and the median age is 18.4 years.
Therefore it can be understood that majority of Afghans in the present day grew up in an environment largely marked by a ‘progressive and liberal characteristics’ over these two decades albeit not comparable to the 70s. Nonetheless, along with women rights members of LGBTQAI+ community were starting to be aware of their rights, were possibly imagining a future where they could live an authentic life. But Taliban 2.0 have casted all such aspirations into oblivion, now instances of hunting down LGBTQAI+ people are daily occurrences. Either they are coerced to live a spurious existence or on the other end shot cold blooded by Taliban. Hence I believe the LGBTQAI+ issue too should be prominently and clearly stated in all the policies concerned with improving Afghan lives.
I would also like to point out that as Taliban is almost exclusively depended on Pakistan, China and Russia (along with some other minor players) for it’s political legitimacy and other forms of support which are crucial for it’s survival. It is imperative for the global community to carry out dialogues with Russia and China, although they themselves have gravely questionable tracks on human rights violations. But unlike their Taliban 'friend' they are a much larger and complex player in world politics and can provide some degree of hope, pressure could be channelize through these power on Taliban.