Afghan Paedophile Ring May Have Abused Over 500 Boys; Officials May Be Involved, Victims Killed
Afghanistan paedophile ring may be responsible for abuse of over 500 boys. Social workers claim teachers and local officials are implicated, and believe thousands more children may have been targeted. The Guardian, Nov. 13, 2019.
A paedophile ring involved in the abuse of at least 546 boys from six schools has been discovered in Afghanistan’s Logar province. Some of the victims of the abuse have since been murdered according to the campaigners who first discovered videos of abuse posted to a Facebook page. Five families killed their sons after their faces were seen on videos posted to social media. Two other boys – a 13 and 15 year old – were killed last week, although the perpetrators are unknown.
Civil society organisation, The Logar Youth, Social and Civil Institution, which has been working in the region for 16 years, revealed the extent of the abuse after discovering more than 100 videos on the social media site. The institution is investigating other high schools in the region, believing thousands more children may have been abused. Mohammed Mussa, a lead social worker at the institution, alleges that teachers, headteachers and local authority officials are implicated in the abuse ring.
“The boys we have spoken to are between the ages of 14 to 20 and the cases were reported in relatively secure areas. That’s one of the reasons why we think that the numbers could peak significantly,” he said. “Perpetrators might coordinate because they understand that if legal action is taken against them, they work as a group rather than an isolated incident.”
One school boy, Tamim*, 17, from Logar province, said that he recorded his headteacher’s demands on his phone last year. “He told me that he loved me and wanted to have sex with me,” Tamim said. His parents hadn’t believed him until they heard the recording. Students said the headteacher had built a private room in the school’s library, where he molested male students after school and on weekends...
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/nov/13/afghanistan-paedophile-ring-that-abused-over-500-boys
Boy from a village in Kandahar province.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi, Bacha Bazi, 'boy play' has a long tradition in Afghanistan & Pakistan.
Wiki. Bacha bāzī (bacheh, 'boy', and 'bazi' play, 'game') is a slang term in Afghanistan for a wide variety of activities involving sexual relations between older men and younger adolescent men, or boys. The practitioner is commonly called bacha baz (meaning "boy play" in Dari) or simply bach. The custom is connected to sexual slavery and child prostitution. In the 21st century, Bacha Bazi is reportedly practiced in various parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Force and coercion are common, and security officials state they are unable to end such practices because many of the men involved in bacha bazi-related activities are powerful and well-armed warlords.
During the Afghan Civil War (1996–2001), bacha bazi carried the death penalty under Taliban law. The practice of dancing boys is illegal under Afghan law, but the laws are seldom enforced against powerful offenders and police have reportedly been complicit in related crimes. A controversy arose after allegations surfaced that U.S. government forces in Afghanistan after the invasion of the country deliberately ignored bacha bazi. The U.S. military justified this by claiming the abuse was largely the responsibility of the "local Afghan government."
Dancing boy performing in what is now Uzbekistan, c. 1905-1915.
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