Bacha bāzī (Persian: بچه بازی, literally "playing with boys"; from بچه bacha, "child", and بازی bāzī, "game") is a slang term inAfghanistan for a wide variety of activities that involve pedophilia. The perpetrator is commonly called Bacha Baz (meaning "pedophile" in Persian). It may include to some extent child pornography, sexual slavery and child prostitution in whichprepubescent and adolescent boys are sold to wealthy or powerful men for entertainment and sexual activities.[1] Bacha bazi has existed throughout history,[2] and is currently reported in various parts of Afghanistan.[3][4][5][6][7] Force and coercion are a common component of this abuse, and security officials state they are unable to end it because many of the men involved in bacha bazi-related activities are powerful and well-armed warlords including former Northern Alliance commanders.[8][9][10]
During the Taliban's rule (1994-2001), bacha bazi carried the death penalty.[11][12] The practice of dancing boys is illegal under Afghan law, being "against both sharia law and the civil code",[13] but the laws are seldom enforced against powerful offenders and police have been reportedly complicit in related crimes.[14][15]
Allegations have surfaced that US forces in Afghanistan after the Invasion of Afghanistan intentionally ignored Bacha Bazi, also called "boy play".[16] The military denied this, but claimed that it was largely the responsibility of the local Afghan government.[17]
History[edit]
Bacha bazi is a form of pederasty which has been prevalent in Central Asia since antiquity. It waned in the big cities after World War I, for reasons that dance historian Anthony Shay describes as "Victorian era prudery and [the] severe disapproval of colonial powers such as the Russians, British, and French, and the post-colonial elites who had absorbed those Western colonial values."[18]
A number of Western travellers through Central Asia have reported on the phenomenon of the bacchá. Visiting Turkestan in 1872 to 1873, Eugene Schuyler observed that, "here boys and youths specially trained take the place of the dancing-girls of other countries. The moral tone of the society of Central Asia is scarcely improved by the change". His opinion was that the dances "were by no means indecent, though they were often very lascivious." At this date there were already signs of official disapproval of the practice. Wrote Schuyler:
Schuyler remarked that the ban had barely lasted a year, so enthusiastic were the Sarts for a bazem "dance". He further describes the respect and affection the dancers often received:
He also reports that a rich patron would often help establish a favourite dancer in business after he had grown too old to carry on his profession.[19]
Count Konstantin Konstantinovich Pahlen, during his travels through the area in 1908 and 1909, described such dances, and commissioned photographs of the dancers:[20][21]
In 1909, two bacchá performed among the entertainers at the Central Asian Agricultural, Industrial and Scientific Exposition in Tashkent. Noting the public's constant interest in and laughter at the performance, several locally based researchers recorded the lyrics of the songs performed by the two boys (16-year-old Hadji-bacchá and 10-year-old Sayid-bacchá, both from the then Margilan uyezd). The songs were then published in the original "Sart language" (Uzbek) with a Russian translation.[23]
Under the Taliban, bacha bazi was declared homosexual in nature, and therefore banned. The Taliban's opposition to bacha bazi was that they considered it incompatible with Sharia Law, and outlawed the practice after coming to power in 1996.[11] Sexual relations with adolescents were considered sodomy with the charge carrying the death penalty.[12]
Media coverage[edit]
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[24] and aired in the U.S. the following month.[25] Journalist Nicholas Graham of The Huffington Post lauded the documentary as "both fascinating and horrifying."[26] The film won the 2011 Documentary award in the Amnesty International UK Media Awards.[27] The film was broadcast on Channel 4's More4 service.
The issue has been covered by RAWA, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.[28] 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. British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," which the soldiers didn't understand.[6]
In the novel The Kite Runner, and in the movie of the same name, the practice of bacha bazi is depicted. In the plot, the protagonist's half-nephew is forced to become a dancing boy and sexual slave to a high-ranking official of the Taliban government, who also had, years earlier, raped the boy's father when the father was a pre-teen and the official was a teenager.
In December 2010, a cable made public by WikiLeaks revealed that foreign contractors from DynCorp had spent money on bacha bazi in northern Afghanistan.Afghan Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar requested that the US military assume control over DynCorp training centers in response, but the US embassyclaimed that this was not "legally possible under the DynCorp contract".[13]
A documentary film by Najibullah Quraishi about dancing boys was screened by the UK Royal Society of Arts on March 29, 2010[24] and aired by the U.S. TV seriesPBS Frontline on 20 April 2010."[25]
In March 2011, The Documentary series on the BBC World Service addressed the concerns over the increased incidence of Dancing Boys and how this was at odds with the image which many wish to project about the post-Taliban future.[29]
In December 2012, a young man in an "improper relationship" with a commander of the Afghan Border Police killed eight guards. He had made a drugged meal for the guards and then, with the help of two friends, attacked them, after which they fled to neighboring Pakistan.[30]
In a 2013 Vice Media, Inc. documentary 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 personal 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 on the abuse after a young boy is shot in the leg after trying to escape a police barrack. 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. "If [my commanders] don't fuck the asses of those boys, what should they fuck? The pussies of their own Grandmothers?"[31]
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 US military was arming them against the Taliban and placing them as the police commanders of villages — and doing little when they began abusing children. One U.S. Army Captain, Dan Quinn, became distressed after hearing cries of young boys being raped by Afghan officers. He then intervened and beat up the Afghan officer who was responsible. After the beating, the US Army relieved the Captain of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan. He has since left the military.[32][33]
