(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Bach bazi is Persian for "playing with boys", and has a long history in Afghanistan. It is a form of sexual slavery and abuse of children, which means that a wealthy man takes on a boy so young that he has not yet had a beard. The boy wears women's clothes and is trained to dance erotic dances at weddings and other festive gatherings. In most cases, he is also sexually abused, both by the "owner" and by others. The payment for this goes to the boy's owner, while the boy himself has to deal with food and shelter.
During the uprising against the Soviet-supported Communist government in the 1980 century, the practice of reserve base widespread among warlords from US-supported mujahedin groups. The Taliban later banned the practice and imposed the death penalty on the perpetrators. But since the fall of the Taliban, the practice of keeping young boys as sex slaves has become more widespread, not least because having "dancing boys" is seen as a status symbol among many of the United States' allied warlords from the former Northern Alliance. Parliamentary Abdulkhabir Uchqun from Northern Afghanistan told The Diplomat newspaper in August 2014 that the practice is advancing in almost all regions of Afghanistan. "I have asked local governing authorities to stop the practice, but they are not doing anything," Uchqun said.
In 2013, the human rights organization Hagar International launched the report "Forgotten no more: Male child trafficking in Afghanistan». According to this report, especially boys under 14 are used as sex slaves in Afghanistan. At least half of the cases were bacha bazi, and for these boys, sexual abuse and rape was a daily offense. One of the boys the organization interviewed said, "They made me dance for them at night, and then one of them would do 'bad work' [euphemism for rape] over and over again." In many cases, the sex slaves became used as a slave labor.
Used and discarded. To prevent the boys from escaping, the perpetrators often select boys who are too young to defend themselves, give them drugs and threaten them with weapons. The boys are recruited either by kidnapping or due to extreme poverty. When the boys get too old, they are thrown out to life on the street, and often end up feeding by begging, pimping or prostitution. Many of them also end up as abusers of opium, another businessman who has flourished during NATO's occupation. From 2001 to 2015, annual production of opium has increased from 185 to 3300 tonnes. Dee Brillenburg Wurth, who previously worked with children's rights for the UN in Afghanistan, told the Washington Post in April 2012 that there are no statistics on how widespread the practice of bacha bazi is in Afghanistan, but it is "out of control in some areas". The practice is still formally banned, but Wurth told the newspaper that as far as she knew, no single charge had been taken against the perpetrators, and that boys who report sexual abuse to the police risk being jailed. The same article also stated that police often appeared as eager spectators at weddings and other festivities where dancing boys performed.
"They like to be here." The Hagar International report found that the Afghan security forces not only allowed the practice – they were also the dominant practitioners of human trafficking. In as many as 15 of 25 cases where boys were used as sex slaves, the perpetrators came from the police or military. In an article on forced deportation to Afghanistan during the Class Fight on October 20, 2012, young boy Nazifullah Azizi told police what he said when they found him alone and unconscious on the street in Kabul: "You are very pretty. You're like a girl. You can be with us ... They said if you don't have a family, you can live with us and we can give you money. "
To prevent the boys from escaping, the perpetrators often select boys who are too young to defend themselves, give them drugs and threaten them with weapons.
In the Vice documentary This is What Winning Looks Like from 2013 Ben Anderson interviewed Major Bill Steuber. Steuber complains that the Afghan police he is there to train not only rob money from the locals they are meant to protect – they also kidnap young boys and sexually abuse them in the police camp. The children are called "tea boys" because they are used as servants in addition to being sex slaves. "You see them on all the bases," Anderson says. “13-14 year old boys. It's a very common practice here. " After police shot and killed three youngsters trying to escape, Steuber decided to address the issue with the local commander. However, he won little hearing from the commander, who claimed that the boys were there voluntarily: "They like to be here and present their buttocks at night," he said, and continued: "If my men don't fuck those guys in the ass, who's going to they fuck then? The pussy of their grandmothers? " Steuer's complaints did not produce any results. Nor did he receive the reports he sent to his superiors about the abuses.
Heard the boys scream. In 2012, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley jr. and two other US soldiers killed by a 17-year-old "tea boy" held at the military base by Afghan commander Sarwar Jan. In his last phone conversation with his father before he was killed, Buckley told Jr. that they were lying in their bunks at night and heard the boys screaming while being raped by Afghan policemen. Their officers asked them not to intervene because it was part of the local culture, said his father, Gregory Buckley Sr. to the New York Times in September. Buckely sr. believes that the US military's acceptance of child abuse led to the son's death. "The young boys see that our soldiers allow this to happen, and therefore consider them an accomplice," he says. The child abuser and commander Sarwar Jan have since advanced to a higher police position in the same district.
Protested and dismissed. US captain Dan Quinn told the New York Times that they "put people in positions of power that did worse than the Taliban." In the summer of 2011, Quinn was told that one of the leaders of the local police force they were training had kidnapped and raped a fourteen-year-old girl while she was working in the field. Quinn reported it to the regional commander, who gave the man one day in jail – and then forced the girl to marry the rapist.
In September of that year, Quinn was told that a local police officer, Abdul Rahman, had kidnapped a local boy, whom he linked to his bed and used as a sex slave. When the boy's mother came and demanded that her son be released, she was beaten by the cops – but she eventually got the boy with her, and she even reported the case to the Americans because both she and the son were afraid it would happen again. When Quinn confronted Rahman, he admitted the relationship, but laughed it off. The entire confrontation ended with Quinn breaking free on Rahman, which in turn led to reprisals for the former: Both Captain Quinn and his aide Sergeant Charles Martland were stripped of their command posts and sent home to the United States. Rahman should have received no punishment.
Norway still present. A spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan wrote in an email to the New York Times that allegations of sexual abuse by Afghan security forces were a matter for the Afghan judiciary, and that there is no requirement for US soldiers to report it. In a statement, the Pentagon denies having official policies to prevent soldiers from reporting human rights violations.
In October last year, US President Barack Obama declared that the United States will still have 9800 troops in Afghanistan throughout 2016. Their mission is to train Afghan security forces and to hunt for Al Qaeda. "Our NATO allies and partners will continue to play an indispensable role in strengthening the Afghan security forces, including respect for human rights." Recently, it was also decided that Norway will continue to be present with 50 soldiers in Afghanistan throughout 2016. Their main task is to train the Afghan special police and the Afghan special police command in Kabul.
Since the invasion in 2001, more than 90 people have been killed in the war in Afghanistan. Over 000 of them have been civilians.
