These young boys are called Bacha Bareesh, or beardless boys, and the practice itself is called Bacha Bazi play boy. Some of these boys are taken from their families in promise of work, education or a better life. Mostly their families are not aware of the fact that they are being sexually exploited as sex slaves.

Omid's story


Pedophilia and Islam
Each time she begins to speak, she stops, swallows hard, wipes her tears and begins again. The boy had studied for a year at a nearby Islamic school in the town of Kehrore Pakka. In the blistering heat of late April, in the grimy two-room Islamic madrassa, he awoke one night to find his teacher lying beside him. He was hurting me. He looks over at his mother. Parveen reaches over and grabs her son, pulling him toward her, cradling his head in her lap.
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With the looming withdrawal of Nato troops and a persistent insurgent threat, Afghanistan is in a precarious position. Innumerable tragedies have beleaguered rural Afghans throughout the past decades of conflict — perpetual violence, oppression of women, and crushing poverty have all contributed to the Hobbesian nature of life in the Afghan countryside. While the Afghan government has been able to address some of these issues since the Taliban's ouster in , archaic social traditions and deep-seated gender norms have kept much of rural Afghanistan in a medieval state of purgatory. Perhaps the most deplorable tragedy, one that has actually grown more rampant since , is the practice of bacha bazi — sexual companionship between powerful men and their adolescent boy conscripts. This phenomenon presents a system of gender reversal in Afghanistan. Whereas rural Pashtun culture remains largely misogynistic and male-dominated due to deeply-ingrained Islamic values, teenage boys have become the objects of lustful attraction and romance for some of the most powerful men in the Afghan countryside. Demeaning and damaging, the widespread subculture of paedophilia in Afghanistan constitutes one of the most egregious ongoing violations of human rights in the world. The adolescent boys who are groomed for sexual relationships with older men are bought — or, in some instances, kidnapped — from their families and thrust into a world which strips them of their masculine identity. These boys are often made to dress as females, wear makeup, and dance for parties of men.
In Afghanistan women are not allowed to dance in public, but boys can be made to dance in women's clothing - and they are often sexually abused. It's after midnight. I'm at a wedding party in a remote village in northern Afghanistan. There is no sign of the bride or groom, or any women, only men. Some of them are armed, some of them are taking drugs.