Afghanistan is finally set to outlaw the sick ‘bacha bazi’ practice that sees young boys dressed up as women and sexually abused.
Heavy penalties are set to be laid out for the first time in a landmark move against the depraved act, officials in Kabul said.
It comes after it was revealed last year how the Taliban were exploiting rampant bacha bazi in police ranks to mount deadly insider attacks, exposing a hidden epidemic of kidnapping of young boys for institutionalised sexual slavery.
The revelations intensified longstanding demands by campaigners for Kabul to enact an incisive legal provision to curb bacha bazi – literally ‘boy play’ – which has seen a striking resurgence in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
A raft of punishments will now be listed in Afghanistan’s revised penal code – from up to seven years in jail for sexual assault to capital punishment for ‘aggravated cases’ such as violating more than one boy.
‘There is an entire chapter on criminalising the practice (bacha bazi) in the new penal code,’ Nader Nadery, a senior advisor to President Ashraf Ghani, told AFP.
‘The code is expected to be adopted any time this month. This is going to be a significant step towards stopping this ugly practice.’
A draft of the chapter seen by AFP, titled ‘Driving children towards moral corruption’, also states that bacha bazi victims cannot be prosecuted, a significant caveat in a nation where sex assault victims often face punishment.
Afghanistan’s criminal law previously only prohibited pederasty and sex outside of marriage, which rights campaigners said did not sufficiently address the problem of bacha bazi.
‘This chapter clearly defines bacha bazi as a crime, leaving no room for ambiguity,’ Ghani’s legal advisor Nasrullah Stanekzai told AFP, waving printed copies of the revised penal code in his hand.
Aside from police commanders, warlords, politicians and other members of the Afghan elite often keep ‘bachas’ as a symbol of authority and affluence.
The young boys, sometimes dressed effeminately with makeup and bells on their feet, can be used as dancers at private parties and are often sexually exploited.
AFP’s investigation found that the Taliban were using the boys – keen on revenge and easy prey for recruitment – to infiltrate security ranks and mount crippling insider attacks on police in southern Afghanistan. The insurgents deny the claim.
Before the penal code, activists pushed for years for special legislation on bacha bazi, with scant hope of getting it through parliament as they suspect the practice is prevalent among lawmakers themselves.
‘I have received calls from MPs that say they will never let a bacha bazi law pass in parliament,’ said Soraya Sobhrang from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. ‘This is a battle to save 21st century slaves.’
The penal code is likely to be passed by presidential decree during the ongoing parliamentary recess. But Sobhrang worries that some lawmakers may try to water it down when it is later subjected to a parliamentary review.
Afghanistan has a poor record of enforcing similar provisions, including a law to eliminate violence against women and another to ban the recruitment of child soldiers, especially when the perpetrators are powerful.
‘Explicit criminalisation in law of the heinous practice of bacha bazi is commendable, but implementation of laws in Afghanistan has been questionable,’ the All Survivors Project, a global fact-finding effort into sexual violence against males in conflict zones, told AFP.
‘How is the government planning to monitor, investigate and hold accountable those responsible for abusing boys under this new legal provision?’
As Afghanistan’s conflict escalates, critics have said there appears to be no will to act against abusive security officials who are seen as the lesser of two evils in the fight against insurgent groups.
Western officials have privately conceded to AFP that some Afghan commanders accused of bacha bazi are ‘too strategic to be removed’ from their posts.
But growing public scrutiny of the practice, once shrouded in shame and silence, is forcing authorities to act in some areas.
Earlier this month, the government sacked Shah Mirza Panjsheri, police chief of the volatile Dasht-e-Archi district in northern Kunduz province, after a video of his ‘bacha bazi party’ surfaced on social media.
‘He was kidnapping young, beautiful boys and forcing them to dance in bacha bazi gatherings,’ a Kunduz government spokesman told AFP.
‘When we heard about this we dismissed him immediately,’ he said, adding that he was the first high-ranking police official in Kunduz to be sacked for this practice.
Afghanistan is set to criminalise the practice of ‘bacha bazi’, sexual exploitation of boys, with a slew of stringent punishments laid out for the first time in a revised penal code. The move comes after an AFP report last year found the Taliban are exploiting the centuries-old practice, one of the most egregious violations of human rights in the country, to mount deadly insider attacks in the volatile south.Here are some key answers about bacha bazi.Powerful warlords, commanders, politicians and other members of the elite often keep ‘bachas’ as a symbol of authority and affluence.Bachas, sometimes dressed as women, are often sexually exploited. They can also be used as dancers at private parties.Bacha bazi is not widely seen as homosexual behaviour – popularly demonised as a deviant sexual act, prohibited in Islam – and is largely accepted as a cultural practice.’Women are for child-rearing, boys are for pleasure’ is a common saying across many parts of Afghanistan.The ancient custom, banned under the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule, has seen a resurgence in recent years. It is said to be widespread across southern and eastern Afghanistan’s rural Pashtun heartland, and with ethnic Tajiks across the northern countryside.How has it been allowed to flourish? Tight gender segregation in Afghan society and lack of contact with women have contributed to the spread of bacha bazi, rights groups say.Several other factors such as an absence of the rule of law, corruption, limited access to justice, illiteracy, poverty, insecurity, and the existence of armed groups have also helped the practice spread, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said in a report in 2014.AIHRC points out that Afghanistan’s criminal law prohibits rape and pederasty, but so far there are no clear provisions on bacha bazi.’There is a gap and ambiguity in the laws of Afghanistan regarding bacha bazi and the existing laws do not address the problem sufficiently,’ the report said.It is this gap which the government hopes the revised penal code will address.But the government has a poor track record of implementing such measures, as many of the perpetrators have connections with the security organs and by using power and giving bribes they get exempted from punishment.Where do the boys come from? And what happens to them afterwards? Bachas are typically aged between 10 and 18. Many of them are kidnapped and sometimes desperate poverty drives their families to sell them to abusers.’The victims of bacha bazi suffer from serious psychological trauma as they often get raped,’ AIHRC’s report said.’Such victims suffer from stress and a sort of distrust, hopelessness and pessimistic feeling. Bacha bazi results in fear among the children and a feeling of revenge and hostility develop in their mind.’In turn, many adolescent victims are said to grow up to have boy lovers of their own, repeating the cycle of abuse.’In the absence of any services to recover or rehabilitate boys who are caught in this horrendous abuse, it’s hard to know what happens to these children,’ said Charu Lata Hogg, a London-based fellow at Chatham House, a think tank.’We have heard anecdotal reports that many grow up to keep their own bachas, perpetuating the revolving door of abuse.’Bacha bazi is having a detrimental bearing on the perpetual state of conflict in Afghanistan, helping the Taliban to infiltrate security ranks in provinces such as Uruzgan, officials say.The abusive practice in security ranks also undermines support for NATO-trained Afghan forces.’To date, the US has provided over $60 billion in assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), including nearly $500 million to the Afghan Local Police,’ the US Congress said in 2015.’Predatory sexual behaviour by Afghan soldiers and police could undermine US and Afghan public support for the ANDSF, and put our enormous investment at risk.’The practice also continues to embolden the Taliban’s desire to reassert sharia law in Afghanistan and is fuelling their insurgency.’Such wild abuses of the predatory mujahideen forces in the early 1990s drove the popularity of the austere Taliban, helping them sweep to power across most of the country. Similar behaviour of the government forces after 2001 is also helping to inspire the insurgency,’ a Western official in Kabul told AFP.
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