Can The Taliban End The "Bacha Bazi" Practice?

"Bacha Bāzī" is a traditional practuce in Afghanistan in which men exploit and enslave adolescent boys for entertainment and/or sexual abuse. The man exploiting the young boy is called a Bacha Baz.

These preadolescent boys, also known as "Bacha Bareesh" or beardless boys, come from impoverished families and serve as "entertainers" to influential Afghans. Dressed as girls and wearing makeup they dance for their masters who later take them in order to get involved in a sexual relationship. This is how these boys provide for their families.

It is not rare that these children are often taken from their parents with the excuse that they are going to be provided with an education and a promising future.

When they reach adolescent age and once their beard starts growing, their service is no longer desired and they are released. This is where their tragic lives continue to worsen due to the psychological damage caused and due to very difficult reintegration into society.

As the perpetrators have always been empowered warlords who have important positions in the Afghan corrupted government, police, and military systems, this practice, going back several centuries into the history of the country, has been a challenge when it comes to its eradication. As a deeply rooted custom, it has been a part of their culture whose archaic aspects are not easily forgotten.

During the reign of the Taliban government, the practice was outlawed. After the US invasion in 2001, the former mujahideen arose again and brought this custom back to life. Since then, the Bacha Bazi custom has evolved and pedophilia reached its peak. Across lawless Afghanistan young boys were kidnapped, raped, trafficked, and sold as sexual slaves (Foreign Policy, 2013).

The situation and the mentality in Afghanistan got so distorted that the families of these boys consensually handed over their sons knowing exactly what their destiny was. The fact that this custom has evolved into an institutionalized practice in certain regions is beyond disturbing. All the efforts made to suppress the practice failed due to the level of corruption of the Afghan government and its involvement in it.

Once the custom made its comeback following the US invasion in 2001, members of US Special Forces could hear from their bunks Afghan militia members sexually abusing boys in their base, however, they were not allowed to take action and were advised to "look the other way because it’s their culture" (The New York Times, 2015). Nevertheless, in 2011 one of the captains of US Special Forces beat up an Afghan National Police (ANP) for keeping an Afghan boy tied to his bed as a sex slave (AP News, 2015).

Hope that "Bacha Bazi" would finally face its end was high when the Taliban took Afghanistan again in August 2021. The problem is that the legal system in the country became more complex because the perpretrators are reportedly powerful individuals ruling the transitioning Afghanistan.