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Trafficked, exploited, married off: Rohingya children’s lives crushed by foreign aid cuts
The Associated Press ^ | December 17, 2025 | BY KRISTEN GELINEAU (D-AP)

Posted on 12/17/2025 5:59:42 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

UKHIYA, Bangladesh (AP) — In moments when she is alone, when there is a break in the beatings from her husband, the girl cries for the school that was once her place of peace in a world that has otherwise offered her none.

Ever since the military in her homeland of Myanmar killed her father in 2017, forcing her to flee to neighboring Bangladesh with her mother and little sisters, the school had protected Hasina from the predators who prowl her refugee camp, home to 1.2 million members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority.

One day in June, when Hasina was 16 years old, her teacher announced that the school’s funding had been taken away. The school was closing. In a blink, Hasina’s education was over, and so, too, was her childhood.

The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed this year by U.S. President Donald Trump, along with funding reductions from other countries, shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and youth training centers and crippled child protection programs. Beyond unwanted marriages, scores of children as young as 10 were forced into backbreaking manual labor, and girls as young as 12 forced into prostitution. With no safe space to play or learn, children were left to wander the labyrinthine camps, making them increasingly easy targets for kidnappers. And the young and desperate were picked off by traffickers who promised to restore what the children had lost: Hope.

Life has always been dangerous for the 600,000 children languishing in these chaotic, overcrowded camps, where a squalid jumble of bamboo and tarpaulin shelters are jammed onto landslide-prone hills. But Trump’s decision in January to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development has made it even more so, the AP found in interviews with 37 children, family members, teachers, community leaders and aid workers.

(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: asphyxiatedpress; associatedpress; journalism; kristengelineau; literallyhitler; media; ourmoneyistheirmoney; press; usaid; usaworldpolice
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1 posted on 12/17/2025 5:59:42 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I am sorry but I missed the memo where AMERICA is the only country that has something called MONEY.


2 posted on 12/17/2025 6:00:27 AM PST by Cowgirl of Justice
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Why don’t rich moslem countries provide foreign aid?


3 posted on 12/17/2025 6:00:47 AM PST by kosciusko51
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Send birth control.


4 posted on 12/17/2025 6:01:30 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Hilarious choice of sob story by the anti-American TDS editors at AP. I don’t care. We can’t solve every problem.


5 posted on 12/17/2025 6:02:29 AM PST by WashingtonSource
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Though the U.S. spent just 1% of its budget on foreign aid, Trump dubbed USAID wasteful and shut it down, a move that has proven catastrophic for the world’s most vulnerable.”

Perhaps if 98% of USAID’s money wasn’t being used to start wars and cause mass killings, USAID would still be in business today.


6 posted on 12/17/2025 6:02:52 AM PST by BobL (Trusting one's doctor is the #1 health mistake one can make.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Are United States taxpayers responsible for funding the education of muslims in Bangladesh???????

I say "Bravo, President Trump!!!!"

7 posted on 12/17/2025 6:03:01 AM PST by Ken522
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Send the friggin’ UN third worlders a very sternly worded letter advising them to get with the program or get the hell out. American taxpayers won’t be paying for everything anymore.


8 posted on 12/17/2025 6:05:20 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Freedom isn' FREE. Neither is Socialism. Somebody has to pick up the tab for the freeloaders.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
There is a reason this place is called "Bang-the-dish."

Any county that needs American foreign aid to survive probably shouldn't be a country in the first place.

9 posted on 12/17/2025 6:06:36 AM PST by Towed_Jumper (Please remain seated until your civilization comes to a complete stop.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

America’s decency and generosity was weaponized to bring it down.


10 posted on 12/17/2025 6:07:11 AM PST by Jonty30 (The next time I go to Communion, I think I will dip the wafer into the wine to improve the flavour.)
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To: kosciusko51

Rohingya are Burma’s Muslim minority.

Why the Saudis, Kuwaitis and UAE do not take care about their fellow muslims in need?


11 posted on 12/17/2025 6:07:38 AM PST by AZJeep (sane )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
The Rohingya minority was so despised by the locals that even Buddhist monks wanted to kill them.

Maybe we should ask why this is?

12 posted on 12/17/2025 6:08:34 AM PST by Drew68 (Concern posting since 2001.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
It sounds like they have a problem they need to resolve.

WE have our own problems WE need to resolve.

13 posted on 12/17/2025 6:11:14 AM PST by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

They the rich gulf muslims save them.

Cheapskates.


14 posted on 12/17/2025 6:14:36 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Deport all evil muslims. Celebrate all good Muslims.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The UN has a UNICEF children’s fund specifically setup to help these children. Oh the money is gone? Stolen by many pig bureaucrats? Well start there.


15 posted on 12/17/2025 6:16:45 AM PST by kvanbrunt2
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To: BobL

USAID was proved to be a leftist NGO funding source.

Pretty much exclusively.


16 posted on 12/17/2025 6:17:40 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Deport all evil muslims. Celebrate all good Muslims.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

It reminds me, Burma is a mees, in state of permanent civil war, all kind of people are suffering there.
Why are Rohingya so special that they need special care?
And, for our Socialist friends, Burma is yet another example of failed Socialist state.
Let Bernie Sanders, AOC and Mamdani chip in to help fellow socialists!


17 posted on 12/17/2025 6:17:49 AM PST by AZJeep (sane )
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To: kosciusko51

Rich Muslim countries provide foreign aid — but usually for the promotion of Islam and terrorism.


18 posted on 12/17/2025 6:17:50 AM PST by Rockingham
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

In a Darwinian world, the Rohingya are unfit.

That is, the strongest survive, the weak perish.


19 posted on 12/17/2025 6:17:54 AM PST by bert ( (KE. NP. +12) Quid Quid Nominatur Fabricatur)
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To: BobL
“Though the U.S. spent just 1% of its budget on foreign aid, Trump dubbed USAID wasteful and shut it down, a move that has proven catastrophic for the world’s most vulnerable.”

All of these liberals should take 1% of their paycheck every week and send it over there. You'll hear howling. Liberals have been studied and found to give far less to charity than conservatives, who want to choose which causes to support, such as their local places of worship. Liberals want the government to just tax everyone and do whatever it likes, such as sending LGBTQ+ workshops to poor countries.

20 posted on 12/17/2025 6:21:08 AM PST by Albion Wilde (To live free is the greatest gift; to die free is the greatest victory. —Erica Kirk)
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