Bacha bazi

Bacha bāzī (Pashto and Dari: بچه بازی, lit. 'boy play') is a pederasty practice in Afghanistan in which men exploit and enslave adolescent boys under the age of 18 for entertainment and/or sex. Pederasty involves sexual slavery and child prostitution by older men of young adolescent males. The man exploiting the young boy is called a bacha baz (literally "boy player"). Typically, the bacha baz forces the bacha (or boy) to dress in women's clothing and dance with bells on his feet. The bacha can also be rented out for male-only parties.

Often, the boys come from an impoverished and vulnerable situation, mainly without relatives or abducted from their families. In some cases, families on the brink of starvation may sell their young sons to a bacha baz or have him "adopted" for food and money. Facing social stigma and sexual abuse, the young boys struggle with psychological effects from the abuse and suffer from emotional trauma for life, including turning to drugs and alcohol.

A study published by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reported that 78% of Afghan men who keep bacha bazi boys are married to a woman. Most bacha baz are married to women. Some Afghans believe that bacha bazi violates Islamic law on grounds that it is homosexual in nature; others believe that Islam only forbids a man to sexually engage with another man, but not with a boy.

History

Dance of bacha, Samarkand, 1905–1915, photo by Prokudin-Gorsky

"Portrait of bacha", by Vasily Vereshchagin (1867–1868)

The practice of bacha bazi in modern Afghanistan and Central Asia dates as far back as the 9th or 10th century. In the 19th century, British authors observed Pashtun fighters singing "odes of their longing for young boys." German ethnographic research conducted in the 1970s observed bacha bazi (called bachabozlik in Uzbek) among the Uzbek population in the mountainous region of northern Afghanistan. The research hypothesized that the origin of bacha bazi to the region most likely stems from either Ancient Greek--especially considering Hellenistic influence on Mazar-i-Sharif--or ancient Chinese influences, both of which had similar social practices.

In Kandahar, poetry traditionally idolized the "beardless boy" as the icon of physical beauty. These young boys were called halekon or ashna. A poem by Syed Abdul Khaliq Agha mentions that "Kandahar has beautiful halekon," and the poem continues that "they have black eyes and white cheeks." It should be noted, however, that the concept of the "beautiful boy" and "boy love" is not unique to Afghanistan; it is reflected in Urdu ghazals and Arabic poetry from centuries ago.

Formation of the Taliban

Based on some accounts, outlawing bacha bazi was one of the key factors in Mullah Omar mobilizing local movement for the Taliban. Reportedly, in early 1994, Omar led 30 men armed with 16 rifles to free two young girls who had been kidnapped and raped by a warlord, hanging him from a tank gun barrel. Another instance arose when in 1994, a few months before the Taliban took control of Kandahar, two militia commanders confronted each other over a young boy whom they both wanted to sodomize. In the ensuing fight, Omar's group freed the boy; appeals soon flooded in for Omar to intercede in other disputes. Mullah Omar had a dream in 1994 in which a woman told him: "We need your help; you must rise. You must end the chaos. God will help you."

During the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001), the Taliban banned and enforced death penalty on bacha bazi. Nonetheless, it has been argued that some Taliban members engage in bacha bazi in secrecy.

Post-U.S. Invasion

With the collapse of Taliban rule and U.S. invasion in 2001, bacha bazi reemerged as a way for men, including "Afghan merchants, illegal armed groups, and government officials," to sexually abuse young boys under the guise of the historical practice of bacha bazi. Bachi bazi surged throughout the entire country and especially in Pashtun-majority regions.

Bacha bazi was outlawed during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan period, but the laws were seldom enforced against powerful offenders, and police had reportedly been complicit in related crimes. Force and coercion were common, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan stated they were unable to end such practices because many of the men involved in bacha bazi were powerful and well-armed warlords. Although Ashraf Ghani promised to end bacha bazi in a 2015 speech, hardly, if any, prosecutions were actually made. Sometimes, the boys were unjustly charged rather than the perpetrators.

U.S. government forces in Afghanistan deliberately ignored bacha bazi abuse by Afghan security forces. According to a report published in June 2017 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) had received 5,753 vetting requests of Afghan security forces, some of which related to sexual abuse. The DoD was investigating 75 reports of gross human rights violations, including 7 involving child sexual assault. According to The New York Times, United States law required military aid to be cut off to the offending unit, but that never happened.

In several instances, U.S. soldiers who brought up suspecting or witnessing bacha bazi by Afghan security forces faced retribution by the military. US Special Forces officer, Capt. Dan Quinn, was relieved of his command in Afghanistan after fighting with an Afghan militia commander who had been responsible for keeping a boy as a sex slave. Charles Martland, a U.S. soldier, was initially discharged from the military for beating up an Afghan police commander in Kunduz upon learning that he raped a boy.

Modern examples

Clover Films and Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi made a documentary film titled The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan about the practice, which was shown in the UK in March 2010 and aired in the US the following month. Journalist Nicholas Graham of The Huffington Post lauded the documentary as "both fascinating and horrifying". The film won the 2011 Documentary award in the Amnesty International UK Media Awards.

The practice of bacha bazi prompted the United States Department of Defense to hire social scientist Anna Maria Cardinalli to investigate the problem, as ISAF soldiers on patrol often passed older men walking hand-in-hand with young boys. Coalition soldiers often found that young Afghan men were trying to "touch and fondle them", which the soldiers did not understand.

In December 2010, a leaked diplomatic cable revealed that foreign contractors hired by the American military contractor DynCorp had spent money on bacha bazi in Kunduz Province. Afghan Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar requested that the U.S. military assume control over DynCorp training centres in response, but the U.S. embassy claimed that this was not "legally possible under the DynCorp contract".

In 2011, an Afghan mother in Kunduz Province reported that her 12-year-old son had been chained to a bed and raped for two weeks by an Afghan Local Police (ALP) commander named Abdul Rahman. When confronted, Rahman laughed and confessed. He was subsequently severely beaten by two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and thrown off the base. The soldiers were involuntarily separated from the military, but later reinstated after a lengthy legal case. As a direct result of this incident, legislation was created called the "Mandating America's Responsibility to Limit Abuse, Negligence and Depravity", or "Martland Act" named after Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland.

In 2011, in an agreement between the United Nations and Afghanistan, Radhika Coomaraswamy and Afghan officials signed an action plan promising to end the practice, along with enforcing other protections for children. In 2014, Suraya Subhrang, child rights commissioner at the national Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, stated that the areas practicing bacha bazi had increased.

In December 2012, a teenage victim of sexual exploitation and abuse by a commander of the Afghan Border Police killed eight guards. He made a drugged meal for the guards and then, with the help of two friends, attacked them, after which they fled to neighbouring Pakistan.

In a 2013 documentary by Vice Media titled This Is What Winning Looks Like, British independent film-maker Ben Anderson describes the systematic kidnapping, sexual enslavement and murder of young men and boys by local security forces in the Afghan city of Sangin. The film depicts several scenes of Anderson along with American military personnel describing how difficult it is to work with the Afghan police considering the blatant molestation and rape of local youth. The documentary also contains footage of an American military advisor confronting the then-acting police chief about the abuse after a young boy is shot in the leg after trying to escape a police barracks. When the Marine suggests that the barracks be searched for children, and that any policeman found to be engaged in pedophilia be arrested and jailed, the high-ranking officer insists what occurs between the security forces and the boys is consensual, saying "[the boys] like being there and giving their asses at night". He went on to claim that this practice was historic and necessary, rhetorically asking: "If [my commanders] don't fuck the asses of those boys, what should they fuck? The pussies of their own grandmothers?"

In 2015, The New York Times reported that U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan were instructed by their commanders to ignore child sexual abuse being carried out by Afghan security forces, except "when rape is being used as a weapon of war". American soldiers 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. But the U.S. soldiers have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the U.S. military was arming them against the Taliban and placing them as the police commanders of villages—and doing little when they began abusing children.

On 23 September 2016, the Taliban militants in northern Baghlan province executed a man and a boy on charges of "bacha bazi".

In fiction

The musical The Boy Who Danced on Air by Rosser & Sohne premiered off-off-Broadway in 2017. Inspired by The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan documentary, it follows Paiman, a bacha bazi who is growing older and will be released from slavery soon. He meets Feda, a fellow bacha bazi, and the two consider running away as they fall in love. In the background, Paiman and Feda's masters, Jahander and Zemar, reckon with America's influence on Afghanistan's society.

The production received positive to mixed reviews. Jesse Green, writing for The New York Times, said the work "[took] the challenge of difficult source material too far... The ick factor here is dangerously high, a problem that the production... labors hard to mitigate through aesthetics," and appreciated the romance but wished it had not attempted "a stab at political relevance." Jonathan Mandell, writing for New York Theater, said that the Jahander subplot was "one of the ways [Rosser and Sohne] are trying to compensate for their Western perspective and the show's focus on the fictional romance. But their efforts at filling in the background don't strike me as sufficient." TheaterMania's review called it "both emotionally and intellectually stirring. Anyone who cares about the future of the American musical should run out and see it now—as should anyone who cares about the country in which the United States is presently fighting the longest war in our history."

After an online stream of the original production was released in July 2020, the work received significant backlash from Afghans, particularly LGBT Afghans, who perceived it as romanticizing child sexual abuse and criticized the white American writers for orientalism and misrepresenting bacha bazi as an accepted "tradition" in Afghanistan. The backlash led many to apologize for their involvement with the production and stream; the stream was removed ahead of schedule. After consulting with members of the Afghan community, creators Tim Rosser and Charlie Sohne acknowledged in a statement that "no Afghan voices were empowered in the creation of the show," and chose to end all distribution of the music and donate previous proceeds to Afghan charities.

See also

• Child sexual abuse
• Human rights in Afghanistan
• Bacha posh, cross-dressing a daughter as a boy for increased social freedom in Afghanistan
• The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan (2010 documentary)
• Khawal, cross-dressed male dancers in pre-20th century Egypt
• Köçek, cross-dressed male dancers in Ottoman Turkey
• Ubayd Zakani, a 14th-century Persian poet
• Anti-Afghan sentiment
• Pederasty

References

• Londoño, Ernesto. "Afghanistan sees rise in 'dancing boys' exploitation". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2015.

Further reading

• Abdi, Ali (2022). "Bachah-bāzī: A Socio-Erotic Tradition". Afghanistan. 5 (2): 153–171. doi:10.3366/afg.2022.0091. S2CID 252611948.
• Abdi, Ali (2022). "The Afghan Bachah and its Discontents: An Introductory History". Iranian Studies. 56: 161–180. doi:10.1017/irn.2022.42. S2CID 250567083.
• I. Baldauf (1990): "Bacabozlik: boylove, folksong and literature in Central Asia", Paidika: The Journal of Pædophilia 12:2.6, pp. 12-31.

External links

• Joseph Goldstein, U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies' Abuse of Boys, The New York Times (September 2015)
• Confessions of an Afghan Boy Sex Slave, Newsweek (May 2015)
• Forgotten No More: Male Child Trafficking in Afghanistan, Hagar International (April 2014)
• Kandahar Journal; Shh, It's an Open Secret: Warlords and Pedophilia, The New York Times (February 2002)
• This is What Winning Looks Like
• PBS Frontline: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan
• "The Documentary: Afghanistan's Dancing Boys". BBC World Service. March 23, 2011.