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Bacha bazi

Bacha bāzī [1] (/ˈbɑːtʃɑːbɑːˈzi/, Pashto and Dari: بچه بازی, lit. 'boy play') refers to a pederasty practice in Afghanistan in which men exploit and enslave adolescent boys for entertainment and/or sexual abuse.[2][3][4][5] The man exploiting the young boy is called a bacha baz (literally "boy player").[3] Typically, the bacha baz forces the bacha to dress in women's clothing and dance for entertainment.[3][6] The practice is reported to continue into the present as of 2025.[7][8][9]

Often, the boys come from an impoverished and vulnerable situation such as street children, mainly without relatives or abducted from their families.[3][10][11] 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. [3] Facing social stigma and sexual abuse, the young boys, who often despise their captors, struggle with psychological effects from the abuse[12] and suffer from emotional trauma for life, including turning to drugs and alcohol.[3]

Bacha bazi was outlawed during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan period.[13][14][15] Nevertheless, it was widely practiced. Force and coercion were common, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan stated they were unable to end such practices and that many of the men involved in bacha bazi were powerful and well-armed warlords.[16][17][18] The laws were seldom enforced against powerful offenders, and police had reportedly been complicit in related crimes.[19][20] While bacha bazi carried the death penalty,[21] the boys were sometimes charged rather than the perpetrators.[10] Bacha bazi carries the death penalty under Taliban law.[21] Article 170 of the first General Penal Code of Afghanistan, which was adopted in 1921 and called for a fine and jail time for keeping bachas, was the first law on bacha bazi in the history of modern Afghanistan.[22]

History

See also: Slavery in Afghanistan
Dance of bacha, Samarkand, 1905–1915, photo by Prokudin-Gorsky

According to German researchers, the practice of bacha bazi in modern-day Afghanistan was widely recognized by the 13th century.[23] Today, Afghanistan is one of the rare places where bacha bazi---a pederasty practice--has been preserved in the public consciousness.[24] Many experts opine poverty, extreme gender segregation and war as its main drivers. Numerous ethnographic researches make reference to the practice being widespread in the northern, southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. Lord Curzon, who visited the court of Abdur Rahman Khan in the late nineteenth century, refers to “dancing-boys” as “an amusement much favored in Afghanistan”; and John Alfred Gray, a British physician who served as the amir's surgeon in the early 1890s, describes a scene of a dozen boys, “aged about thirteen to fourteen,” with long hair and in girls' dress, dancing at the court. Mahmud Tarzi, a leading intellectual of the time, also makes reference to the presence of both bāzengar (dancing-boys) and kanchini (dancing-girls) in public gatherings of late 19th century Kabul in his memoire.

Article 170 of the first General Penal Code of Afghanistan, which was adopted in 1921 and called for a fine and jail time for keeping bachas, was the first law on bacha bazi in the history of modern Afghanistan.[22]

Ethnomusicologist John Baily commented that organizing gatherings with dancing-bachas was not allowed in Herat in the 1970s, mainly because violent fights often erupted at such events.[22] German ethnographic research, conducted in the 1970s, observed the widespread practice of dancing boys or bachabozlik among Uzbek populations in northern Afghanistan. The research found such stances were prevalent among Afghan intellectuals, who either “denied the existence of the phenomenon in Afghanistan or among their own ethnic group” or associated it with illiteracy, gender segregation, and the limited sexual possibilities of rural areas. While the exchange of a few kisses and caresses was permissible between the bacha and bacha bāz, no sexual intercourse was allowed, or the relationship would end abruptly.[22]

According to international relations scholar Lasha Tchantouridze, there is no reliable data about bacha bazi during the socialist era or the way the Soviets handled it during their military operation. Tchantouridze suggests that - since the Soviets executed perpetrators of similar practices in Central Asia during the '20s and '30s - they probably did not tolerate the practice in Afghanistan either.[25] However, bacha bazi was practiced by Western-supported forces, including the Mujahideen and later by field commanders in the Northern Alliance. Among the Mujahideen, the keeping of underage male conscripts (so-called "chai boys") for sexual servitude was seen as a status symbol.[14][25]

Bacha bazi was outlawed by the Taliban after their ascent to power and imposition of Sharia law in 1996. The Taliban virtually eradicated the practice by harsh repression against those who engaged in it.[25] However, the practice saw a revival after the Taliban's ouster in 2001, due both to the former Mujahideen commanders regaining power and the widespread lawlessness.[14]

A study published by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) found that 78% of the men who practice bacha bazi are married to a woman.[26][27] 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.[3]

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.[28] In 2014, Suraya Subhrang, child rights commissioner at the national Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, stated that the areas practicing bacha bazi had increased.[10] Up to 2017, Afghan law lacked clear definitions or provisions to address the practice. A new penal code entered in force in February 2018, containing specific provisions to punish offenders involved in bacha bazi.[29]

In 2022, after the Taliban's return to power following the United States' military disengagement from Afghanistan, it was reported that the abuse persisted in the reinstated Islamic Emirate, with Taliban officials accused of engaging in bacha bazi and the criminalization of victims.[7][8] According to a 2022 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime report, the practice is expected to continue and potentially be amplified.[9] In addition to some Taliban commanders allegedly holding bachas, the Taliban's ban on music and dancing appears to have driven the practice further underground, making it even harder to identify or protect victims.[30]

Formation of the Taliban

According to some accounts, the practice of bacha bazi by warlords was one of the key factors in Mullah Omar mobilizing the Taliban.[25][14] 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.[31] 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. His movement gained momentum through the year and he quickly gathered recruits from Islamic schools totaling 12,000 by the year's end with some Pakistani volunteers.

While initially remaining quiet and focused on continuing his studies during the Afghan Civil War, Omar became increasingly discontent with what he perceived as fasād in the country, including the practice of bacha bazi, ultimately prompting him to return to fighting in the Civil War. In 1994, Omar, along with religious students in Kandahar, formed the Taliban, which emerged victorious against other Afghan factions by 1996. Omar led the Taliban to form a Sunni Islamic theocracy headed by the Supreme Council, known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which strictly enforced sharia.

After Mohammad Najibullah stepped down, the country fell into chaos as various Mujahideen factions fought for total control of Afghanistan. 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."[32] Omar started his movement with less than 50 armed madrassah students who were simply known as the Taliban (Pashtun for 'students'). His recruits came from madrassas located in Afghanistan and the Afghan refugee camps which were located across the border in Pakistan. They fought against the rampant corruption which had emerged during the civil war period and were initially welcomed by Afghans who were weary of warlord rule. Apparently, Omar became sickened by the abusive raping of children by warlords and turned against their authority in the mountainous country of Afghanistan from 1994 onwards.[33][34][35][36]

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[37] and aired in the US the following month.[38] Journalist Nicholas Graham of The Huffington Post lauded the documentary as "both fascinating and horrifying".[39] The film won the 2011 Documentary award in the Amnesty International UK Media Awards.[40]

The practice of bacha bazi prompted the United States Department of Defense to hire social scientist AnnaMaria 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.[41]

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 northern Afghanistan. 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".[42]

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.[43] The soldiers were involuntarily separated from the military, but later reinstated after a lengthy legal case.[44] 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.[45]

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.[46]

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?"[47]

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.[48][49] Military lawyer Annie Barry Bruton commented that "both the Pentagon and the White House declined to take responsibility for inaction on the part of the U.S. government and instead shifted the blame to the Afghan government".[50]

According to a report published in June 2017 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the 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.[51] According to The New York Times, discussing that report, American law required military aid to be cut off to the offending unit, but that never happened. US Special Forces officer, Capt. Dan Quinn, was relieved of his command in Afghanistan after fighting an Afghan militia commander who had been responsible for keeping a boy as a sex slave.[52]

In fiction

The musical The Boy Who Danced on Air by Rosser & Sohne premiered off-off-Broadway in 2017.[53] Inspired by The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan documentary,[54] 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."[54] 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."[55] 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."[53]

After an online stream of the original production was released in July 2020,[56] the work received significant backlash from Afghans,[57] 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.[58]

See also

References

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