"Boy Play" Increasing Under Karzai

“It used to be that only a few people had boys. Now everyone owns one and the authorities don’t care about it at all,” he said. “It’s got to the point where almost no party takes place without dancing boys. It’s seen as a disgrace if you don’t have dancing boys at your wedding. This has led to a rise in immoral behaviour among boys, and if nothing is done about it, this trend will continue.”

“Bacha baazi has increased tremendously lately and is still on the rise,” said Baz Gul, a resident of Kunduz. “In the past, people were ashamed of it, and tried to hide it. Now nobody is shy about it, and they participate openly in these parties.”

“It’s a good thing,” one man said. “We have our own culture. In foreign countries, the women dance. We have our own dances which don’t exist anywhere else in the world.”

Militia commanders and other men of substance buy and sell good-looking boys, using the bacha baazi parties as marketplaces.

“Regional commanders engage in this practice and support it,” he said. “They have money, power and weapons, and neither the district heads nor the local population dares to tell us about this.”
.... “Commanders often take their boys to a market and buy them beautiful clothes, as a challenge to other commanders. Sometimes they even give them cars. That gives them a very big reputation,” he said.

Hafizullah Khaliqyar, head of the prosecutor’s office for Baghlan province said there was little that prosecutors could do. “The police and district heads won’t cooperate with us,” he complained. “They don’t send us their files, so we can’t take action.”

In Takhar province, the head of the local security agencies, General Sayed Ahmad Saame, said: “This practice has such a long history in this province that local people treat it as a respected custom, and won’t cooperate with us. This is a serious obstacle to our work.”
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SEE SOURCE FOR FULL TEXT:
IWPR: The Dancing Boys of the North
Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Note: IWPR: The Dancing Boy...