U.S. instructs its soldiers to ignore child sex abuse in Afghanistan, as 'Bacha Bazi' is Afghan culture

KABUL (Web Desk) - According to a New York Times report, U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan have been given instructions to ignore rampant child sex abuse on the hands of Afghan forces.

The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene - in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.

The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militias to help hold territory against the Taliban. But soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages - and doing little when they began abusing children.

"The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights," said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. "But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did  - that was something village elders voiced to me."

After the beating, the Army relieved Captain Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan. He has since left the U.S military.