WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. officials are studying reports that in the frantic evacuation of desperate Afghans from Kabul, older men were admitted along with young girls who claimed to be “girlfriends” or were sexually abused.
U.S. officials at the UAE and Wisconsin admissions centers have identified numerous incidents in which Afghan girls have been presented to authorities as “wives” of much older men. While child marriage is not uncommon in Afghanistan, the United States has strict policies against human trafficking that include lawsuits for offenders and sanctions for countries that are not repressed there.
An internal document seen by The Associated Press says the State Department has called for “urgent guidance” from other agencies after alleged child brides were taken to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Another document, described in the AP by officials who know him, says Afghan girls at a transit site in Abu Dhabi alleged that they had been raped by elderly men with whom they were forced to marry to escape of Afghanistan.
The State Department made no immediate comment on the documents or the veracity of the details they contained. Officials say all of these allegations are taken seriously, but many of them are anecdotal and difficult to prove, especially amid the sinking of Afghan evacuees in various locations in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
An August 27 status report sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, as well as to military command centers in Florida, points to possible problems related to young girls and older men, some of whom claim to have more than one wife at Fort McCoy, with 60,000 people. 243-square-mile Army base in Wisconsin. AP obtained relevant parts of the document, entitled “SitRep No. 63 of the Afghanistan Task Force”.
“Prison staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of underage women posing as‘ married ’to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families,” the document says. “The State Department has called for urgent guidance.”
There was no immediate indication from the military or the national security and health and human services departments, which run the facility, that this guidance would have been received.
At the same time, U.S. officials in the UAE have expressed similar concerns, sending a diplomatic cable to Washington warning that some young Afghans had been forced to marry to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over.
Officials familiar with the cable say it describes the allegations of several girls in the humanitarian city of Abu Dhabi who had been sexually assaulted by their “husbands” and calls for guidance on how to handle such cases. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss internal communications.