Domestic abuse has become such an issue among Afghans brought to the United States and temporarily living at various U.S. military bases, that “gender and protection advisors” are being deployed to help with the problem.
As part of President Joe Biden’s massive resettlement operation, about 53,000 Afghans are currently temporarily living on eight military bases in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Texas, Indiana, New Mexico, and Virginia, while thousands more are being flown to the U.S. daily.
Fort McCoy in Monroe County, Wisconsin, housing the most Afghans, is struggling so much with domestic abuse among the population that the U.S. military is deploying “gender and protection advisors” to alleviate the issue, according to the La Crosse Tribue:
The U.S. military has sent “gender and protection advisors” to Fort McCoy to handle domestic abuse, child care emergencies and the upcoming winter for the thousands of Afghan refugees still housed at the army base.
[Emphasis added]…
“Every day there’s calls for domestic violence, mediation, trying to get victims to a safe place, coordination with law enforcement such as the FBI, the military police, and other agencies, child abuse, nutrition, and marriage,” [the chief gender advisor for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Sharon] Feist said. [Emphasis added]
With the winter season coming, the U.S. military believes the “gender advisors” are necessary because domestic abuse may become worse among Afghans as families opt to stay inside to keep warm rather than going outside on the base.
In a recent New York Times report, a handful of single Afghan women at Fort McCoy said they were harassed by Afghan men for being on the base without male counterparts.
“We were told, ‘How are you here without your male family member? We won’t tolerate this,'” one of the single Afghan women, 23-years-old, recalled. As a result, military officials had to move all single Afghan women into their own neighborhood on the base to avoid confrontations with Afghan men.
Afghan women at Fort McCoy told the Wisconsin State Journal of similar instances where they have been harassed by Afghan men:
The two women spoke by phone with the Wisconsin State Journal Saturday about their experience at Fort McCoy on the condition of anonymity. They said they feared a negative reaction from some Afghan men housed at the base, many of them former members of the U.S.-trained Afghan National Army who have caused problems, such as harassing women and skipping people in the food lines. [Emphasis added]
…
After traveling between overseas facilities for weeks, the woman, her husband, children and siblings eventually arrived at Fort McCoy. Yet there, she only found more “chaos,” straining conditions and hardship. Both her husband and sister are in poor health, a constant worry for her. And like the 18-year-old, the woman complained of harassment from male refugees about her clothes and body. [Emphasis added]
“I’m ashamed that I’m complaining about my own Afghan people,” she said, adding that discipline of the men by U.S. personnel is uneven. “They don’t know how to behave with women. … We are afraid of them.”
[Emphasis added]
Already, two Afghan men at Fort McCoy are being prosecuted for separate charges of domestic abuse and child sex crimes.
In those two cases, one of the Afghans is accused of strangling and suffocating his wife, whom he has allegedly abused for years. The other Afghan is accused of molesting 12-year-old and 14-year-old boys and threatening them with violence if they reported the abuse.
Military officials confirmed last month that there have been instances where Afghans at the bases were reported to police for robbery and theft. In one instance, an Afghan man was arrested after stealing a vehicle on one of the bases.
The “gender advisors” will also help with treating child malnourishment. The La Crosse Tribune reports that Afghans have complained about the American food being served at the bases.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Tom Tiffany (R-WI), along with other Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), have sought information about the criminal records of Afghans brought to the U.S. and criminal cases occurring on the bases where they are being housed.
Thus far, the Biden administration has not disclosed any such information.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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