Afghans Condemn Abuse of "Dancing Boys"

Tradition deplored by civil and religious leaders is hard to eradicate.

Human rights defenders have warned that the practice of keeping "dancing boys" is on the rise in a number of Afghan provinces.

This custom, known as "bacha bazi" and condemned by rights activists and clerics, involves older men making young boys perform at private parties, after which they are often sexually abused.

Experts from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) spoke at a series of IWPR debates about this abusive practice and warned that the government was not doing enough to combat it.

Mohammad Jawad Alawi, the head of the AIHRC's office in Ghor in west-central Afghanistan, said the "bacha bazi" custom was growing in popularity across the country as well as in his own province. One problem he identified was that there is no specific legislation banning it.

"Unfortunately, boys aged between 12 and 18 fall victim to this practice of bacha bazi and sexual abuse, yet there is no punishment for this act in Afghan law," he said.

A study which the AIHRC carried out in 2014 showed that boys ranging in age from ten to 18, and generally from impoverished backgrounds, were taken on by the rich and powerful and given work as house servants or in shops and hotels. Some were dressed as girls and made to dance at celebratory events, and frequently sexually abused by the guests afterwards.

Ghor university lecturer Mohammad Nabi said the practice was not only damaging to the boys themselves, it also led to "the collapse of family order and disrupts social cohesion".

Mohammad Shah Majidi, the provincial director of hajj and Islamic affairs in Ghor, said this kind of behavior went against Islamic law. He accused the Afghan government of taking no action to address "bacha bazi", and claimed that there had not been a single prosecution in recent years.

In Kunduz in northeastern Afghanistan, AIHRC provincial head Hayatullah Amiri also said "bacha bazi" was on the rise.

"Bacha bazi is not deemed a crime under any law of Afghanistan, and this is a huge omission that hinders the fight against it," he said.

However, Mohammad Ibrahim Samadi, from the Kunduz provincial department of justice, said that Article 430 of the Afghan criminal code clearly outlawed what he described as "debauchery and vice". "Bacha bazi" clearly fell within this category, he added.

"Based on this article, those who carry out acts of debauchery and vice, including bacha bazi, can be punished with a three-year prison term," he continued. "But the main problem is that the law is not being implemented."

Religious scholar Maulavi Abdul Hai Nyan blamed a failure to observe Islamic law.

Kunduz university professor Hedayatullah Haqmal said the ongoing security situation and absence of law and order created impunity for the perpetrators of "bacha bazi".

"One of the factors can be poverty," he explained. "People in poor circumstances or children who have lost their parents and are left without a guardian are prey for the wicked 'bacha baz' [perpetrator]."

Haqmal said there were a number of avenues for pursuing the perpetrators of "bacha bazi". As well as the law banning vice, the Afghan constitution states that when matters are not covered by existing civil legislation, they can be referred to Islamic law.

Matiullah Dorman, an activist, noted that "bacha bazi" was carried out by strongmen who did not fear the repercussions.

"Some years ago, an official from the Kunduz attorney's office went to a bacha bazi gathering and had everyone involved arrested," he recalled. "However, I saw that in an open court session, they [the defendants] were backed by powerful figures."