Dancing Boys Of Afghanistan

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Dancing Boys of Afghanistan For some people, when you think of Afghanistan, you think of war zone and their loved ones who are serving the country in a deserted soil. For others, the country reminds them of stringent Muslim ethics, by which both adulterers and homosexuals are strictly forbidden. But, not many people are aware that the country still retains its 5000 years old tradition of enslaving boys for sexual exploitation. And the notorious tradition is called bacha bazi. Bacha bazi, (meaning Boy play) is a process in which young Afghan boys are sold to warlords and powerful businessmen to be trained as dancers who perform for male audiences in women's clothing and are then used and traded for sex. bacha bazi originated in Pakistan but the practice has sadly been wide spread through centuries. Under the guise of doing a documentary on similar practices in Europe, Quraishi gained the confidence of Dastager, a former mujahideen commander and wealthy businessman whose business interests include importing autos from the Far East. With Dastager as his guide, Quraishi takes viewers inside the world of bacha bazi, where prominent men compete to own and use the boys. The puzzlement behind bacha bazi has always been why it has persisted for so long in Afghanistan, a culture so homophobic that men suspected of being gay can be found in a street gutter with their throats slit. In fact, it is not at all clear that the wealthy and powerful men who buy these boys are homosexuals themselves. One theory holds that the boys are so quickly and thoroughly feminized that they are not viewed by society as boys at all, but as young girls. Supporting this theory is the fact that in Afghanistan a young boy who has been raped is marked for life as feminine. There may therefore be no shame for a rich man to own one or more male sex slaves. As the United States deepens its
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