Bacha bāzī () is a slang term for a custom involving child sexual abuse in Afghanistan, Pakistan and in the history of Turkestan for a custom involving child sexual abuse by older men of young adolescent males or boys, called dancing boys, often involving sexual slavery and child prostitution by older men of young adolescent males or boys. Though outlawed, bacha bazi is still practiced in certain regions of Afghanistan. Force and coercion are 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 are powerful and well-armed warlords.
During times under Taliban currently and previously, bacha bazi carries the death penalty under Taliban law. Under the post-Taliban government, the practice of dancing boys was illegal under Afghan law, but the laws were seldom enforced against powerful offenders, and police had reportedly been complicit in related crimes. The practice of bacha bazi had decreased under the rule of the post-Taliban government. On 23 September 2016, the Taliban militants in northern Baghlan province executed a man and a boy on charges of “bacha bazi” (pederasty).
A controversy arose after allegations surfaced that U.S. government forces in Afghanistan after the invasion of the country deliberately ignored bacha bazi. The U.S. military responded by claiming the abuse was largely the responsibility of the "local Afghan government".
History
One of the original factors mobilizing the rise of the Taliban was their opposition to the practice. After the Taliban came to power in 1996, bacha bazi was banned along with homosexuality. The Taliban considered it incompatible with Sharia law. Both bacha bazi and homosexuality carried the death penalty, with the boys sometimes being charged rather than the perpetrators. Often, boys are selected because they are poor and vulnerable. Men who have been bacha boys face social stigma and struggle with the psychological effects of their abuse.
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.
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 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.
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 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 the Konduz 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 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.