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What Are The Dancing Boys Of Afghanistan? · Gil I Am

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Did you know that a phrase which sounds like the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: title of a traveling dance company has been used to
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  Speaker 1: describe one of Afghanistan's most disturbing forms of child exploitation?
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  Speaker 1: The dancing boys. Three words, almost harmless on the surface.
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  Speaker 1: But behind those words are children whose poverty could become
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  Speaker 1: somebody else's opportunity. Children whose vulnerability could become somebody else's profit.
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  Speaker 1: And children who needed protection from the very adults who
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  Speaker 1: held power over them. Tonight, We are discussing bachabazi, the
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  Speaker 1: exploitation of boys by adult men, sometimes presented as entertainment
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  Speaker 1: and frequently involving sexual abuse. There will be no graphic descriptions.
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  Speaker 1: The facts are serious enough. I'm Gil Guillory, and this
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  Speaker 1: is Did You Know? To understand this story, we must
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  Speaker 1: ask six questions. Who are these boys? What happens to them?
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  Speaker 1: When did this begin? Where has it happened? How does
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  Speaker 1: a child become trapped? And why have so many adults
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  Speaker 1: failed to stop it? We begin with the name. Bacha
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  Speaker 1: Bazi is commonly translated as boy play. Yet the language
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  Speaker 1: can disguise the harm. Human Rights Watch has described boys
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  Speaker 1: performing at gatherings of men, often living under the control
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  Speaker 1: or patronage of a commander or another influential adult. Many
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  Speaker 1: suffer sexual assault. Dancing itself does not establish that a
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  Speaker 1: child has been abused. The issue is exploitation. an adult
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  Speaker 1: using power over a boy for sexual purposes. We must
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  Speaker 1: be precise, because an innocent cultural performance and an abusive
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  Speaker 1: arrangement are not interchangeable, and a child receiving food, money,
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  Speaker 1: or clothing does not make exploitation acceptable. Now, who becomes
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  Speaker 1: a victim? Reporting by the Institute for War and Peace
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  Speaker 1: Reporting described an Afghan human rights investigation involving boys between
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  Speaker 1: 10 and 18, generally from poor families. Some had been
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  Speaker 1: given work in homes, shops, or hotels. Some were made
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  Speaker 1: to perform at celebrations and were sexually abused. Behind a
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  Speaker 1: word like vulnerable, there is an ordinary human need, a meal,
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  Speaker 1: a place to sleep, a job, an adult who appears
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  Speaker 1: willing to help. A promise can sound very different when
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  Speaker 1: the person hearing it is hungry. That is why we
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  Speaker 1: must resist the easy question. Why didn't he simply refuse?
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  Speaker 1: Before asking that, ask what choices were actually available to him.
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  Speaker 1: Ask who controlled the money. Ask who controlled the place
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  Speaker 1: where he slept. Ask whether the person demanding obedience was
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  Speaker 1: also the person everybody else feared. Those questions put responsibility
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  Speaker 1: where it belongs, on the adult exploiting the child. Who
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  Speaker 1: are the perpetrators? Accounts have implicated wealthy men, local strongmen,
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  Speaker 1: militia commanders, and members of the former government's security forces.
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  Speaker 1: There is no single uniform that identifies an abuser. In
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  Speaker 1: a 2013 investigation, the humanitarian news service, then known as IRIN,
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  Speaker 1: described children being enticed or abducted, as well as threats
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  Speaker 1: against families. It reported exploitation in rural districts and among
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  Speaker 1: urban elites. What connected these situations was the imbalance between
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  Speaker 1: someone who could demand and someone who had little power
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  Speaker 1: to refuse. But be careful here. Afghanistan is a country
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  Speaker 1: of people, not a single character in a crime story.
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  Speaker 1: Afghan journalists exposed this abuse. Afghan human rights workers investigated it.
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  Speaker 1: Afghan religious looters condemned it. Their courage belongs in the
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  Speaker 1: account alongside the failures of powerful men. If we erase
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  Speaker 1: the people who resisted, we tell an incomplete story. Where
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  Speaker 1: has it happened? The reporting reaches across different parts of
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  Speaker 1: the country. IWPR documented concern in Gore, in West Central Afghanistan,
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  Speaker 1: and Kunduz in the Northeast. Its later reporting examined exploitation
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  Speaker 1: in bulk, the northern province containing Mazar-e-Sharif. IWPR's 2015 reporting,
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  Speaker 1: the European Union Agency for Asylum's 2024 Guidance, summarized reports
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  Speaker 1: that the former security forces, particularly the Afghan local police,
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  Speaker 1: recruited boys for bacha bazi across the country. That describes
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  Speaker 1: reported reach. It does not mean every police officer participated,
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  Speaker 1: every community accepted it, or every boy faced the same circumstances.
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  Speaker 1: A map can show where a problem has been reported.
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  Speaker 1: It cannot tell us how many frightened children never appeared
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  Speaker 1: in a report at all. When did it begin? It
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  Speaker 1: predates the American intervention of 2001. Historical accounts place related
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  Speaker 1: practices in Afghanistan and the wider Central Asian region long
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  Speaker 1: before the modern war. There is no responsible way to
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  Speaker 1: give this abuse one neat birthday. The modern sequence is clearer.
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  Speaker 1: The Taliban banned the practice during their first period in power,
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  Speaker 1: from 1996 to 2001. After that government fell, renewed reporting
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  Speaker 1: described its resurgence. Then, in 2010, the documentary The Dancing
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  Speaker 1: Boys of Afghanistan, directed by Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi and
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  Speaker 1: produced by Jamie Doran, brought the subject to an international
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  Speaker 1: television audience. It aired on PBS's Frontline that April. The
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  Speaker 1: documentary did not mark the beginning of the abuse. It
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  Speaker 1: marked a moment when more people outside Afghanistan were confronted
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  Speaker 1: with it. And that distinction matters. A camera can reveal
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  Speaker 1: what has been hidden. It cannot, by itself, make the
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  Speaker 1: powerful answer for it. How does a boy become trapped?
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  Speaker 1: The accounts describe more than one route. Some involve force.
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  Speaker 1: Others begin with an offer of support. In some cases...
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  Speaker 1: Families facing severe deprivation give a boy into the care
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  Speaker 1: of a powerful adult in exchange for money. These are
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  Speaker 1: different beginnings, but they can produce the same terrible imbalance.
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  Speaker 1: The child depends on the person exploiting him. Then comes
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  Speaker 1: the question of escape. We often imagine freedom as an
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  Speaker 1: unlocked door, but a door is of little help if
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  Speaker 1: there is nowhere safe on the other side. Where would
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  Speaker 1: the boy go? Who would believe him? Would anyone challenge
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  Speaker 1: the adult he accused? European asylum guidance has described weak enforcement, corruption,
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  Speaker 1: and official complicity under the former government. Even after legal
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  Speaker 1: protections were introduced, instances of boys being jailed were reported.
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  Speaker 1: Think about the message that sends. A child sees danger
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  Speaker 1: in remaining silent and danger in speaking. We should never
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  Speaker 1: confuse silence with permission. Sometimes silence tells us how completely
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  Speaker 1: a person believes help is out of reach. Why does
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  Speaker 1: the abuse continue? The evidence repeatedly brings us back to poverty,
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  Speaker 1: weak accountability, and the protection enjoyed by powerful perpetrators. IWPR's
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  Speaker 1: 2017 reporting described a national Afghan human rights investigation that
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  Speaker 1: had interviewed nearly 2,000 people across 14 provinces. Poverty and
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  Speaker 1: failures of law enforcement emerged as major factors. Local officials
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  Speaker 1: also disputed responsibility for protecting suspects and failing to prosecute them.
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  Speaker 1: That is an especially revealing part of the story. An
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  Speaker 1: institution can acknowledge a problem while explaining why somebody else
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  Speaker 1: must solve it. Meanwhile, a child waits. Some accounts also
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  Speaker 1: discuss strict separation between men and women as part of
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  Speaker 1: the social setting in which boys were used as entertainers.
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  Speaker 1: But a social explanation cannot become an excuse. Restrictions on
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  Speaker 1: adult relationships do not make abuse inevitable. Adults remain responsible
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  Speaker 1: for their conduct. Nor should this practice be confused with
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  Speaker 1: consensual relationships between adults. The defining concerns here are childhood, coercion, exploitation,
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  Speaker 1: and power. What about religion? In IWPR's reporting, Afghan Islamic
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  Speaker 1: scholars and religious officials condemned the practice. Human rights advocates
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  Speaker 1: and clerics were among those calling for action. So, their
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  Speaker 1: religion allows it is an inaccurate explanation of what those
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  Speaker 1: sources describe. The harder question is how men can continue
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  Speaker 1: wrongdoing when people around them already recognize it as wrong.
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  Speaker 1: Condemnation matters. but condemnation without protection leaves a child facing
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  Speaker 1: the same danger the next morning. Now comes a part
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  Speaker 1: of the story that reaches beyond Afghanistan. What did foreign
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  Speaker 1: partners do when abuse involved the forces they supported? In 2017,
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  Speaker 1: Human Rights Watch highlighted findings by the Special Inspector General
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  Speaker 1: for Afghanistan Reconstruction, CIGAR, concerning official complicity and failures to
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  Speaker 1: protect boys. It also raised questions about American assistance, and
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  Speaker 1: the rules intended to restrict support to security forces implicated
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  Speaker 1: in serious human rights abuses. The documented problem was not
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  Speaker 1: merely that abuse existed somewhere in a country at war.
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  Speaker 1: It was that forces receiving international support were implicated, creating
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  Speaker 1: an obligation to confront what that support could enable. This
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  Speaker 1: does not establish that every foreign soldier knew, or that
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  Speaker 1: every commander responded the same way. It does raise a
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  Speaker 1: question no alliance should be allowed to evade. What is
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  Speaker 1: a promise to protect civilians' worth if a child becomes
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  Speaker 1: inconvenient to the partnership? Military strategy has complicated questions. The
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  Speaker 1: worth of a child should not be one of them.
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  Speaker 1: Were laws ever changed? Yes. Afghanistan's revised Penal Code, which
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  Speaker 1: took effect in February 2018, included specific provisions against Bacha Bazi.
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  Speaker 1: The former code also prohibited prosecuting its victims. Those protections matter.
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  Speaker 1: Yet reports of abuse and the punishment of victims showed
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  Speaker 1: the distance between a written rule and what happened in practice.
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  Speaker 1: Penal code chronology. A law has to travel a long
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  Speaker 1: way before it reaches a frightened child. It must pass
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  Speaker 1: through the officer receiving a complaint, the investigator gathering evidence,
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  Speaker 1: and the authorities deciding whether an influential suspect will face consequences.
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  Speaker 1: At each point, the promise can be kept or broken.
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  Speaker 1: And what happened after the Taliban returned to power in
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  Speaker 1: August 2021? it would be wrong to tell you the
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  Speaker 1: problem simply disappeared. The European Union Agency for Asylum's June
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  Speaker 1: 2026 guidance says the practice reportedly continued after the takeover.
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  Speaker 1: It describes exploitation of boys as young as nine and
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  Speaker 1: identifies boys working in supporting roles for Taliban members as
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable to sexual abuse by their securiors. The guidance also
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  Speaker 1: describes stigma falling especially heavily on victims because of their
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  Speaker 1: weaker social position. That is evidence of continuing danger. It
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  Speaker 1: is not a reliable nationwide count, and it does not
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  Speaker 1: establish whether overall prevalence rose or fell compared with the
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  Speaker 1: previous government. What would a meaningful response look like? Start
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  Speaker 1: with a principle. The child is a person to protect.
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  Speaker 1: Protection means a safe place to go, a trustworthy adult
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  Speaker 1: who listens, access to care, education, and a future that
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  Speaker 1: is not controlled by the abuser. It means investigating perpetrators
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  Speaker 1: regardless of their connections. It means helping families before desperation
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  Speaker 1: makes a dangerous offer and look like the only offer available.
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  Speaker 1: And it means allowing a survivor to have privacy. No
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  Speaker 1: child owes the public a photograph, a name, or a
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  Speaker 1: painful account to prove that protection is deserved. We should
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  Speaker 1: also leave Rune for recovery. A boy is more than
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  Speaker 1: what happened to him. His story need not end the
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  Speaker 1: moment someone harmed him. At the beginning, I gave you
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  Speaker 1: three words, the dancing boys. Now listen to what that
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  Speaker 1: phrase leaves out. It leaves out the adult who held
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  Speaker 1: the power, the institution that failed to act, the person
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  Speaker 1: who spoke up, and the child's life beyond the room
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  Speaker 1: where others expected him to perform. That is why this
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  Speaker 1: story deserves careful attention. Outrage is easy to feel for
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  Speaker 1: a moment. Responsibility requires us to keep looking after the
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  Speaker 1: shocking headline has passed. Ask who is protected. Ask who
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  Speaker 1: is believed. Ask whether the person with the least power
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  Speaker 1: can safely tell the truth. Because the measure of a
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  Speaker 1: society's promise is is what happens when its most vulnerable
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  Speaker 1: child needs those promises kept. I'm Gil Guillory, and now
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  Speaker 1: you know the story behind a name that concealed far
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  Speaker 1: too much.