The scourge of bacha bazi continues. According to IRIN:
The child was semi-conscious when the rapist dropped her home with some gifts, lying to her elder sister that she was hit by a car and was experiencing abdominal bleeding.
“She [Sweeta] was threatened that if she told anyone about the incident they would kill her parents,” Lal told IRIN in Kabul…
At least 31 cases of child sexual abuse were registered by the AIHRC in 2007. So far this year only four cases have been reported, though it is estimated by the AIHRC and other human rights organisations, that there are hundreds of cases every year.
“Some parents think by reporting sex offences against their children they will only bring dishonour on their families,” Anwary said.
On 19 September 2007 seven young men gang-raped and tortured a 13-year-old girl in the northern province of Balkh, according to the two rights watchdogs, the AHRO and the AIHRC.
“A government official released all the accused rapists two days after they were apprehended, saying there was a lack of evidence,” said Lal of AHRO.
“The offenders are still at large and the victim is roaming around various government departments with her petition for justice,” he added.
According to Lal, many of those involved in sex offences are able to escape justice due to the weak rule of law and corruption among judges and government officials, and/or have the support of powerful militia leaders.
This is, in a word, abhorrent.
UPDATE: UPI reports, too, that Canadian soldiers are seeking counseling after witnessing young boys being raped:
OTTAWA, June 16 (UPI) — A growing number of Canadian soldiers are suffering after witnessing Afghan boys being raped by Afghan soldiers, the Toronto Star reported Monday.
On Saturday, the Star reported a Canadian corporal gave closed-door parliamentary testimony about a boy’s rape he witnessed in 2006 and the visible signs of rape trauma.
“Anybody who says this is about cultural differences should have their head examined,” [Foreign Affairs Minister David] Emerson told the Star.
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This just turns my stomach. Something as dehumanizing as this makes it difficult not to demonize Afghan men in general. It’s shit like this that makes the Taliban look good to the Afghanis on the street.
bacha means boy, bozi means play. bacha bozi = playing with boys. it applies to boys only. I heard a rumor in this case a girl was raped by some ethnic pashtun men in the north in ‘revenge’ for the raping of a boy in the south by some Afghan National Army soldiers mostly comprised of northerners. how sad for the children…
Reader, you’re right, and I explained what Bachi Bozi means last year in the linked post. The “scourge” I am referring to is the sexual exploitation of children. My phrasing was sloppy and I apologize for the error.
Actually, bacha means ‘child’ or ‘boy’ in Persian depending on the context.
True, disgusting facts, but I wonder if we overdo the ‘cultural tradition’ aspect of this phenomenon when we use an exotic Persian name for something, when in fact this is the same kind of thing that happens the world over in conflict zones that are left to fester for decades.
Ian, I’m not sure it’s as cut and dried as “what happens in a festering conflict zone.” I mean, Islamic literature is replete with long flowery poems to the beauty of young boys, and several prominent Arab and Persian poets were known for keeping their company. And it’s not even a stricly Muslim/Arab/Persian/Pashtun thing, either — the Greeks, recall, and to a far lesser extent the Romans, also romanticised man-boy sexual relationships… which was a definite cultural tradition.
I don’t doubt that the wars have created an environment in which this can become widespread and an appalling indicator of official corruption, but it isn’t quite so cut and dried: a lot of male aid workers have noted that Afghan men are flirty with them, and some enterprising journalists have actually catalogued the youth worshipping gay traditions within traditional Afghan society.
You’re mixing two different things up. I wasn’t saying that open homosexuality is a function of conflict–certainly that’s not the case. And I’m willing to entertain the idea, which I confess I can’t speak to with authority, that Afghan men configure their sexuality differently than American men, so that our categories of gay/bi/straight may not work on them.
But to say that Arab and Persian poets (and let’s throw in the Greeks too) were talking about pre-pubescent boys is outright nonsense. I haven’t read Persian and Arabic poetry exhaustively, but I have read a lot of both in the original, and I think it’s up to you to come up with a single line that promotes the kind of “young boy” love you’re claiming is so prevalent. When they say “youth” they’re talking about what we call adolescents.
It’s also worth mentioning the culture of taunting other ethnicities in Afghanistan based on homosexual behavior; one could say that it’s one of the ways Pashtun and Tajik figure each other as different.
What I was saying, which I don’t want to lose track of, is that rape isn’t just used as a weapon in Afghanistan, and making reference to some “cultural tradition” in a way puts a patina of respectability on something that should never, ever happen.
Ian, you’re right. If you click on the Bacha Bazi link above, you can see the distinction I draw between pedophilia and ephebophilia, and that when you’re talking about 16-year olds it might be possible to draw a cultural line… but I also make the very important point that man-teenager love is not acceptable when personal choice is denied.
Frankly, I could still call a 15-year old boy a young boy. Anyway.
I really hope my posts is not interpreted as lending any sort of respectability to the practice. Even if it were consensual, which is not conceivable, I’d still find it repellant to sexually prey upon children.
Sorry, I REALLY didn’t mean to imply that you in particular were trying to lend it respectability. My tone came across rougher than I wanted. Like the Canadian MFA quoted above, I just think that we shouldn’t say “Oh, they’ve been doing this for centuries” (like people who said that about the Yugoslavs as the genocide was starting).
I also recall reading that the original Taliban gained in popularity back in their early days for putting an end to this kind of brutality.
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