People are free to debate if it was right for the United States to invade Afghanistan in 2001, or if we should have maintained a …
People are free to debate if it was right for the United States to invade Afghanistan in 2001, or if we should have maintained a presence in the country for over two decades, or even if the timing of our recent and hasty withdrawal was appropriate. However, one indisputable fact that is not open for debate is that the moment the United States entered Afghanistan, we accepted a moral, social, and arguably, legal obligation to care for and protect the country’s most vulnerable people, that being women and children. The United States’ rapid and slapdash departure from Afghanistan represents a complete abdication of that responsibility and obligation. We are failing the very people we are supposed to protect and, worse, we are doing so despite our own government’s admission that there was still so much work left undone. The U.S. Department of State reported just this year that Afghanistan “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so…” Afghanistan was also included on a list of state-sponsored governments that had a “documented ‘policy or pattern’ of human trafficking in government-funded programs, forced labor in government-affiliated medical services or other sectors, sexual slavery in government camps, or the employment or recruitment of child soldiers.” This list, in addition to Afghanistan, includes governments from Burma, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia to name a few. According to the U.S. Department of State in 2001, Afghanistan under Taliban rule had one of the worst human rights records in the world. The regime systematically repressed all sectors of the population and denied even the most basic individual rights. The 2002 Trafficking in Persons report noted “the Taliban, a Pashtun-dominated fundamentalist Islamic movement, controlled approximately 90 percent of the country. Taliban forces were responsible for disappearances of women and children, many of whom were trafficked to Pakistan and the Gulf States.” Under Taliban control, women were forced into sex slavery, largely prevented from obtaining real employment, forbidden to walk outside alone, denied access to education, and prevented from receiving appropriate health and medical care.
