This is a story about USAID cuts, but before I get to this week's story about USAID cuts, let's pop back to next week to a previous story on USAID cuts. Cuts of U.S. aid had led to hundreds of underage girls being married off in a surge in violations against persecuted Rohingya children.
Hundreds of underage girls married off and hundreds more children kidnapped as U.S. foreign aid cuts contribute to surge in violations against persecuted Rohingya children. https://t.co/fzoS35zPQy
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 17, 2025
I didn't even know that was a country, but after checking Google, I learned that it's a stateless ethnolinguistic group that is scattered among a number of countries, mainly Bangladesh. Kristen Gelineau reports from Bangladesh that school had provided a refuge for 16-year-old Hasina, and without it, she was quickly married off:
[School] had also protected her from being forced into marriage. And then 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.
With her learning opportunities gone, and her family worried that foreign aid cuts would make their fight for survival in the camps even more perilous, Hasina — along with hundreds of other girls under the age of 18 — was quickly married off. And, just like Hasina, many of the girls are now trapped in marriages with men who abuse them.
Oh so now it’s my fault Islam kidnaps children to marry. Good grief
— The Dank Knight 🦇 (@capeandcowell) December 17, 2025
I like how you blamed this on a lack of US funding and not the horrible people attacking children.
— Nadine (@NadineBlackDog) December 17, 2025
Sounds like more of a cultural issue than an aid issue.
I, for one, blame the people who are trafficking children.
— Sunni (@ControGorilla) December 17, 2025
How exactly is the US responsible here? Maybe you should be addressing the UN.
— matthew jones (@greatimp) December 17, 2025
Who is doing this? If you were to break it down into groups of people what would be the number one thing aligning them?
— Charles Beener (@CharlesBeener) December 17, 2025
Posting this again?
— Strega Nonna 🪄 (@mrszac65) December 17, 2025
These are Bengali Muslims trafficking, raping and “marrying” young Rohingya Muslim girls.
Not one of the 50+ Muslim majority countries cares enough to intervene.
You’re just awful, @AP
The AP usually puts out one of these stories at least once a week. The new one is heartbreaking, says New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Heartbreaking story about women and girls raped in Eastern Congo who can no longer get medication to prevent HIV transmission, because of Trump administration's USAID cuts: https://t.co/34MOw3A7Wc Careless men in DC make decisions, and Congolese girls suffer.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) December 22, 2025
The Washington Post reports that Congolese rape survivors search in vain for medicine after USAID cuts:
Sexual violence is endemic in this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it has become a weapon of war in a region that has rarely known peace over the past 30 years. Women and girls are raped in the forest, by the roadside, in their homes, anywhere they are vulnerable, by men and boys using guns, knives or sticks, secure in their impunity.
…
The scarcity of resources has coincided with a spike in fighting and sexual violence throughout eastern Congo this year. UNFPA says cases of reported rape are up by about a third over last year. But women and girls coming to clinics — terrified, in pain and at great personal risk — often found the shelves empty. Many survivors said in interviews that they were referred elsewhere for help but were unable to make the trip, or had already missed the 72-hour window. They included a penniless 16-year-old, impregnated by her rapist and kicked out by her family; a woman gang-raped next to the body of her husband, who had been killed by armed men; and a mother of four who contracted syphilis and gonorrhea after being assaulted by members of a militia.
Heartbreaking, sure. But it still seems like more of a cultural problem than a money one. Were no other countries sending money to these clinics?
I hit a paywall so I couldn’t read the names of the men in DC who decided Congolese men should rape Congolese girls.
— 🫃🏼💉🇺🇦🥥Hollaria Briden, Esq. (@HollyBriden) December 22, 2025
"Careless men in DC" are supposed to be looking after their American constituents, aren't they? Isn't there a Congolese government that could buy these drugs? The African Union? The European Union? China? Wealthy states in the Gulf? ONLY American taxpayers can pay for them?
— Jack Montgomery (@JackBMontgomery) December 22, 2025
Why?
The programs USAID has cut were so valuable that not a single country or individual anywhere in the world wants to take over funding?
— Philip Greenspun (@PhilipGreenspun) December 22, 2025
It’s inconceivable that no one in the entire world of 8 billion could possibly help them except us.
— St. Walpurga’s Daughter (@SeaDeara) December 22, 2025
Of course these women should get medication, but also ask the question, where is the WHO? Where is the UN? Where is Europe? Why is it always the US who has to supply the medication? Clearly USAID was a thieving group, so we need to find honest organizations to hand out US funds.
— FancyasFuck (@NanRam1) December 22, 2025
Funny how it took you all like six months to FINALLY find a program that may need help. TENS OF BILLIONS spent, and one decent program. Stunning.
— Jake Dunnegan (@JakeDunnegan) December 22, 2025
Here's a thing: Let's not govern by anecdote.
Congolese men bear no responsibility of course.
— OptimisticSkeptic 🚁 (@SkepticOptimal) December 22, 2025
Child rape is endemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the solution of the government is to hand out Plan B, paid for by American tax dollars. Maybe Congo should be doing something about all of the rapes?
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