Are we supposed......to believe....etc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118083591#Comment_118083591

I saw the BBC news report a couple of nights ago and the images of the starving children in the hospital were harrowing. I had a quick search on the BBC website but it wasn’t on their front page but I’ll go have another look for it now after this post.

For those that didn’t see it - the BBC reporter visited an hospital where there were infants being tube fed for malnutrition. The report showed sone infants sharing a cot as numbers being admitted increases. The reporter mentioned that health staff have not been paid since The Taliban took control but the report showed infants being fed by tube so they had supplies.

The reporter was then on the street and said she and her team had been approached by a mother asking if they would by her child. The reporter was then in a small village. She was in a small home (hut like) and the reporter told us they sometimes go a full day without food. They are a family of five (i think) and the baby was a few months old. The mother said that they had sold the baby daughter but she would stay with them till she was a bit older. They mentioned that they had sold her to a man who intended to marry the baby off to one of his sons.

I’ll go find the report if I can 😞

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118083628#Comment_118083628

And you believe that? Afghanistan is now at peace ....who knows for how long? And Afghan mothers are selling their kids?

In many ways, Afghanistan is in a worse place now than during the war. They're certainly not at peace considering the power plays going on. In any case, the situation of the common person is likely to be awful, especially for those who are without resources, or are at odds with the ruling groups. It's not exactly a booming economy, and poverty is widespread.

So an Afghan woman shelters her baby from door kickings and drone strikes that have whacked her sister's wedding. She has put the baby under the stairs with the cat as US Marines have put a gun in her husband's mouth and scremaed "speak English, Haji, motherfucker"

And she's going to sell her children for a kebab?

You're projecting... you have no idea of the state of mind or history of those who would be involved in selling their own offspring. You've decided the set the scenario of someone who has protected their children against all dangers.. but what about those who have been bad parents previously, or those who are ideologically motivated towards a cause, considering their children as being irritations to be removed.

The simple truth is that becoming a parent doesn't automatically make you a "good" person, nor does it mean that your circumstances are going to be better because of it. In many cases, considering the state of Afghanistan, having a child could make your circumstances worse.

How about victims of rape in a society that emphasizes the need of wedlock before having children? How do you think your life would be like under such a restrictive culture, as an unmarried mother and a society that likely would just jump to the assumption that you were a "loose" woman? A traditional hardline Islamic culture wouldn't be a good place for any woman with a child and had never been married. In such a traditional society, you really think there's going to be much sympathy for a rape victim during war? Hardly.

osarusan

Jesus OP, whether this has actually happened or not in Afghanistan as the BBC reported, you are making yourself look very silly firstly with your insistence that NO MOTHER WOULD EVER SELL A CHILD when we have plenty of examples of poverty-stricken families in different countries doing that, and secondly, the repeated attempts to diminish or misrepresent the situation with stupid references to 'a bowl of rice', 'a bowl of porridge', 'a bowl of Pho, and 'a kebab', as if it is a single meal that is on offer in such situations.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118083628#Comment_118083628

I don't know why you won't link to the report so we can evaluate it for ourselves. I'm going to hazard a guess, though, that it didn't claim anyone was selling their children for a kebab.

This is the news report I watched

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-59034650

osarusan

BBC Report: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-59034650

Summary of that aspect of the report/video here:

______

Grieving parents outside the city of Herat have told how they sold off their baby daughter for the equivalent of £360 to a man who lives nearby. The man has claimed she will be married off to his son when she is older but the parents know the girl may face a far worse future than marrying his son.

The unnamed mother cried as she told a BBC reporter: “My other children were dying of hunger so we had to sell my daughter. How can I not be sad? She is my child. I wish I didn’t have to sell my daughter.”

Her husband’s only job was once collecting rubbish locally but even that earns no money now. The husband says: “We are starving. Right now we have no flour, no oil at home. We have nothing. My daughter does not know what her future will be. I don’t know how she will feel about it but I had to do it.”

______

(Christ this new Quote function is totally useless)

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118083705#Comment_118083705

Thanks for the link. But it's not working for me. All I can read is the headline which says "Afghan baby girl sold for $500 by starving family".

Assuming that's a fair summary of the report, I don't see why ShatterAlan finds it either incredible or amusing. As others have pointe out, things like this do happen in times of crisis, especially famine. There are plenty of precedents. People do it both to feed the rest of the family and in the interests of the child sold - she, too, will die if the family starves, so they hope to save her as well as themselves.

ShatterAlan may refuse to believe it if he chooses, but he's not arguing against it. He hasn't engaged with the discussion of why it happens, or attempted to refute any of the precedents offered showing that it does happen.

In a way, his reaction is understandable - there are things from which one averts the mind, and the desperation of people driven to such a thing could be one of them.

Jequ0n

“Her husband’s only job was once collecting rubbish locally but even that earns no money now.”

Yeah, sounds like the family was living the dream before the Taliban destroyed it all.

@Peregrinus

@Peregrinus found it on YouTube

https://youtu.be/N2RocJDb_jE

Nobody said anything about "a kebab", but OK.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084351#Comment_118084351

did you miss post #31 where alan said "And she's going to sell her children for a kebab?"

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118083329#Comment_118083329

German soldiers used to throw babies up in the air and impale them on the end of their bayonets according to british newspapers...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084393#Comment_118084393

That's the comment I'm referring to - didn't see any other one! (But should have quoted)

That kind of dishonesty makes for poor arguing.

When America lives rent-free in folks' head though, they can come up with right gems.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084515#Comment_118084515

shatteralan is well known in these parts for his lying and dishonesty

so i woudlnt be giving any credence to what he posts

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058214750/are-we-supposed-to-believe-etc

You are back at it again.

People selling and trafficking children/babies has happened throughout history and unfortunately still goes on.

Philippine mothers selling babies

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/philippines-mothers-trade-babies-for-illegal-adoption-779736

Malaysia

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/1/baby-selling-investigation-leads-to-arrests-in-malaysia#:~:text=Kuala%20Lumpur%2C%20Malaysia%20%E2%80%93%20Malaysian%20police,the%20outskirts%20of%20Kuala%20Lumpur.

Kenya

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55250431

Benin

https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131004&page=1

Afghanistan is experiencing famine and extreme poverty, so it's unsurprising to read similar stories.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084437#Comment_118084437

There was one specific SS unit that was notorious for these kind of acts (link to the head of one below) Children have been brutally murdered and tortured throughout history, there are countless grim examples of it all the way up to modern times. In the 20th century, when Japan invaded China, they would tie civilians to stakes and get their new recruits to practice bayonetting (to get them used to killing) drawing a circle around the heart so as to avoid killing them and prolong the pain of the victim, and when Japanese forces had killed all the POWs in Nanking, they turned on the remaining men, women and children and started murdering, torturing and raping them systematically (it's horrendous, but photos still survive of these atrocities if you dare to look) Even having beheading competitions, that were widely reported on in the local press. In Australia, despite laws, aborigines were commonly murdered until the 20's, and up until the 70's, the state was taking aboriginal children from their families. History is brutal and replete with countless examples of extreme systematic cruelty, murder, trafficking and torture towards children.

Edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Dirlewanger

Beasty

Trolling thread closed