U.S. Officials Looking Into Afghan Child Trafficking Amid Reports of Child Brides at Evacuation Intake Centers

by Debra Heine

 

U.S. officials are reportedly looking into allegations that older men who recently evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, are sexually abusing young girls whom they claim are their “brides.”

The State Department is reportedly seeking “urgent guidance” from other agencies on how to deal with the troubling issue, after it emerged at intake centers in the United States and abroad.

U.S. officials at intake centers in the United Arab Emirates and in Wisconsin have identified numerous incidents in which Afghan girls have been presented to authorities as the “wives” of much older men. While child marriage is not uncommon in Afghanistan, the U.S. has strict policies against human trafficking that include prosecutions for offenders and sanctions for countries that don’t crack down on it.

One internal document seen by The Associated Press says the State Department has sought “urgent guidance” from other agencies after purported child brides were brought to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Another document, described to the AP by officials familiar with it, says Afghan girls at a transit site in Abu Dhabi have alleged they have been raped by older men they were forced to marry in order to escape Afghanistan.

In the chaotic last weeks before the Biden administration’s August 31 deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, more than 123,000 persons were evacuated out of Taliban-controlled country into the United States.  Only 5,500 of those individuals “self-identified” as American citizens, and of the rest—more than 57,000—were apparently not American citizens, green-card holders, or SIV applicants or their families, according to Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

“Joe Biden appealed to the generosity and the sense of honor of the American people who rightly wanted to save all those loyal Afghans who worked alongside our troops for the last 20 years. But his own administration now admits that they left the vast majority, that’s their words, the vast majority of those Afghans who had been reviewed and vetted in Afghanistan,” Cotton said in a Fox News interview on Thursday.

“That means that tens of thousands of Afghans who had no direct connection to our military were evacuated out of the country and now are en route to our country in the days ahead,” he added.

The State Department had no official comment on the situation, although some officials reportedly said that although they take the allegations seriously, “many of them are anecdotal and difficult to prove.”

An Aug. 27 situation report sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad as well as military command centers in Florida points to potential issues involving young girls and older men, some of whom claim to have more than one wife at Fort McCoy, a sprawling 60,000-acre (243-square-kilometer) Army base in Wisconsin. Relevant portions of the document, titled “Afghanistan Task Force SitRep No. 63,” were obtained by the AP.

“Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families,” the document says. “Department of State has requested urgent guidance.”

According to the AP, “there was no immediate indication from the military or from the departments of homeland security and health and human services, which run the facility, that such guidance had been received.”

“All in one week we found out the federal government lost track of 5,000 unaccompanied minors from the southern border and trafficked child brides in from Afghanistan,” quipped Human Events reporter Jack Posobiec. “What is going on?”

Posobiec was referring to an Axios report on Wednesday that said unaccompanied youths and child migrants have disappeared after the Biden administration invited them into the country via the “Unaccompanied Alien Children” [UAC] border loophole.

The UAC youths and children were expected to stay in contact with government officials after being picked up by “sponsors” — typically illegal migrant parents — to ensure they are safe and in school.

“Roughly one-in-three [phone] calls made to [32,000] released migrant kids or their sponsors between January and May went unanswered, raising questions about the government’s ability to protect minors after they’re released to family members or others in the U.S.,” Axios reported September 1. “In 4,890 of those instances, [government] workers were unable to reach either the migrant or the sponsor.”

Axios raised concerns that these children the government brought in are being sexually trafficked.

“This happened in 2014 as well, when migrant teens were released to traffickers and forced to work on an egg farm,” the outlet noted.

During his tenure, President Trump cracked down on child trafficking by issuing multiple executive orders aimed at stopping the practice, and by signing eight bills targeting human trafficking into law.

“Who are all of the people coming into our Country?” the former president demanded in a statement Friday.

“In addition to the Southern Border, with millions of unvetted people pouring in, we now have tens of thousands of totally unvetted Afghans, who many say are not the ones that should have come in. How many terrorists are among them? How much money is this costing? With all of these developments, our Country is more unsafe now than ever before—and many Americans are still left behind!”

Update:

Via Omri Ceren,  national security advisor for Senator Ted Cruz, highlighted on Twitter two additional breaking news stories on the Afghan refugee debacle.

 

– – –

Debra Heine is a reporter at American Greatness.
Photo “Children Following Marine On Patrol” by Jean Beaufort.
 

 

 

 

 

 

---

---