Bacha bazi (Persian: , ) is a pederastic practice in Afghanistan and in historical Turkestan, in which men exploit and enslave adolescent boys, sometimes for sexual abuse, and/or coerce them to cross-dress in attire traditionally only worn by women and girls and dance for entertainment. The man exploiting the young boy is called a bacha baz (literally "boy player") and the young boy is called a bacha.
Often, the boys come from an impoverished and vulnerable situation such as street children, mainly without relatives or abducted from their families. In some cases, families facing extreme poverty or starvation may feel compelled to sell their young sons to a bacha baz or allow them to be "adopted" in exchange for food or money. The bachas are obliged to serve their patrons and their wishes, through cross-dressing and sexual entertainment. Bachas are primarily exploited for entertainment, but they have also been used for daily tasks in war, and for becoming bodyguards. Facing social stigma and sexual abuse, the young boys, who often despise their captors, struggle with psychological effects from the abuse and suffer from emotional trauma for life, including turning to drugs and alcohol.
Bacha bazi was outlawed during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan period. Nevertheless, it was widely practiced. Force and coercion were common, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan stated they were unable to end such practices and that many of the men involved in bacha bazi were powerful and well-armed warlords. The laws were seldom enforced against powerful offenders, and police had reportedly been complicit in related crimes.Quraishi, Najibullah Uncovering the world of "bacha bazi" at The New York Times 20 April 2010Bannerman, Mark The Warlord's Tune: Afghanistan's war on children at Australian Broadcasting Corporation 22 February 2010 While bacha bazi carried the death penalty, the boys were sometimes charged rather than the perpetrators.
The practice carries the death penalty under Taliban law. Despite the official ban, the practice continues, although some scholars argue that since the mid-2010s, the practice has gradually begun to recede from the view of the public and is increasingly subject to condemnation in places like Kabul.
Etymology
Bacha bazi comes from the Persian words (), meaning 'child' or 'young boy', and (), meaning 'game' or 'play', which later evolved into an Uzbekified form of the word into Bacha bozi (Бача бози), which was known by the same term by the Russians.
History
Origins of Bacha bazi
Scholar and Turkologist Ingeborg Baldauf (1988) hypotheses that bacha bazi originated from Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian influences developed in the regions of Bactria and Sogdia, noting the similarities in classical Greek pederastic customs and the distinction between erastes (lover) and eromenos (beloved). Another potential origin being from Ancient China, due to the parallels of Chinese and Central Asian 'boy love', and its existence in East Turkestan. The Journal of Trafficking and Human Exploitation (2019) said that bacha bazi is considered by some anthropologists to have been introduced by Alexander the Great's ancient Macedonian army in Central Asia. Further stating "[o]ld poems, tales, and songs about Bacha Bazi in Afghanistan predate the pre-Islamic era (Eighth Century)." The Journal of Contemporary Asian Studies (2018) said, "[i]t is generally believed that bachabazi existed in antiquity", but added it was unclear if it was connected with ancient Occidental pederasty due to insufficient study to "offer a conclusive picture" in the context of antiquity.
Bacha bazi in Turkestan
According to Baldauf, the practice of bacha bazi in Medieval Central Asia was recognized by the 13th century, having spread from Khorasan. After the Russians conquered most of Central Asia, they encountered the practice of 'bacha bozi', a practice of boys dancing dressed as girls during the 19th century in the Emirate of Bukhara, and surrounding regions in the north, most common among ethnic Uzbeks, and ethnic Turkmens. The Russians left many detailed accounts of this practice, as they found these cross-dressing and sexual habits to be bizarre, as well as its social and sexual effect on society.
This practice was not only about young boys cross-dressing in female attire, but they would often perform sexual services for their admirers. Abdulla Qodiriy, the first modern Uzbek novelist, was not the only one among Uzbek intellectuals in describing same-sex relations among madrasa students. Qodiriy has also witnessed many incidents taking places in madrasas, and had left a semi-biographical account of a tragic story about two madrasa students in amorous relations, which would later be adapted as a play by Mark Weil and staged at Ilkhom Theatre, the first independent theatre in the Soviet Union, and the only self-supporting cultural institution in the Uzbek SSR.
Besides the Russians, a number of Western travellers through Central Asia, have reported on the phenomenon of bacha bazi, while visiting the region of Turkestan. In 1872 to 1873, Eugene Schuyler observed that the boys of the Emirate of Bukhara were trained to replace the dancing girls of other countries. His opinion was that the dances "were by no means indecent, though they were often very lascivious". Schuyler also reported that these bachas continued to flourish until 1872 in Tashkent, when a severe epidemic of cholera influenced the Mullahs to declare that dancing was against the words of Allah, and at the request of the leaders of the native population, the Russian authorities forbade public dances during that summer.
However, Schuyler had also remarked that the ban had barely lasted a year, and how enthusiastic the Sarts were for a bazem "dance". Schuyler also reported that a rich patron would often help establish a favourite dancer in business after he had grown too old to carry on his profession.
Count Konstantin Konstantinovich Pahlen, during his travels through the area in 1908 and 1909, described such dances, and commissioned photographs of the dancers:
Cushions and rugs were fetched, on which we gratefully reclined, great carpets were spread over the court, the natives puffed at their narghiles, politely offering them to us, and the famous Khivan bachehs made their entrance. Backstage, an orchestra mainly composed of twin flutes, kettle drums, and half a dozen man-sized silver trumpets took up its stand. Opposite us a door left slightly ajar led to the harem quarters. We caught a glimpse of flashing eyes as the inmates thronged to the door to have a good look at us and watch the performance. The orchestra started up with a curious, plaintive melody, the rhythm being taken up and stressed by the kettle drums, and four bachehs took up their positions on the carpet. The bachehs are young men specially trained to perform a particular set of dances. Barefoot, and dressed like women in long, brightly coloured silk smocks reaching below their knees and narrow trousers fastened tightly round their ankles, their arms and hands sparkle with rings and bracelets. They wear their hair long, reaching below the shoulders, though the front part of the head is clean shaven. The nails of the hands and feet are painted red, the eyebrows are jet black and meet over the bridge of the nose. The dances consist of sensuous contortions of the body and a rhythmical pacing to and fro, with the hands and arms raised in a trembling movement. As the ballet proceeded the number of dancers increased, the circle grew in size, the music waxed shriller and shriller and the eyes of the native onlookers shone with admiration, while the bachehs intoned a piercing melody in time with the ever-growing tempo of the music. The Heir explained that they were chanting of love and the beauty of women. Swifter and swifter moved the dancers till they finally sank to the floor, seemingly exhausted and enchanted by love. They were followed by others, but the general theme was usually the same.
In 1909, two bachas performed among the entertainers at the Central Asian Agricultural, Industrial and Scientific Exposition in Tashkent. Noting the public's constant interest in, and laughter at the performance, several locally based researchers recorded the lyrics of the songs performed by the two boys (16-year-old Hadji-bacha and 10-year-old Sayid-bacha, both from the then-Margilan Uezd). The songs were then published in the original "Sart language", with a Russian translation. It waned in many major cities after World War I, for reasons that dance historian Anthony Shay describes as "Victorian era prudery and [the] severe disapproval of colonial powers such as the Russians, British, and French, and the post-colonial elites who had absorbed those Western colonial values". Bacha bazi never disappeared completely within the Central Asian republics, and had shifted to become an underground activity, being practiced in secret.
Spread into Afghanistan Lord Curzon, who visited the court of Abdur Rahman Khan in the late 19th century, refers to "dancing-boys" as "an amusement much favored in Afghanistan", and John Alfred Gray, a British physician who served as the Amir's surgeon in the early 1890s, describes a scene of a dozen boys, "aged about thirteen to fourteen," with long hair and in girls' dress, dancing at the court. Mahmud Tarzi, a leading intellectual of the time, also makes reference to the presence of both bāzengar (dancing-boys) and kanchini (dancing-girls) in public gatherings of late 19th century Kabul in his memoir.
During the time of Abdur Rahman Khan, the signification of bacha bazi was mainly about having bachas dance, and to be bodyguards, rather than having sexual liaisons. These were mainly called gholām-bacha (meaning 'servant child'), and would grow up to be commanders-in-chief, treasury lords, and the Amir's personal bodyguards.
Afghan penalization of Bacha bazi
His grandson, King Amanullah Khan had abolished the short-lived practice that was brought to the Afghan royal court in the 1880s and which later spread to neighboring societies, of recruiting or raising gholām-bachas, for moral reasons. Amanullah also wished to further boast his modernization and anti-slavery campaigns through such efforts, and had criminalized this custom by law.
Article 170 of the first General Penal Code of Afghanistan, which was adopted in 1921, called for a fine of 1,000–5,000 rupees, and jail time for keeping bachas. This was the first law on bacha bazi in the history of modern Afghanistan, and according to Article 167 of the same Penal Code, perpetrators of the 'despicable act' (feʿl-e shaniʿ) on bachas, such as sodomy, were punishable by death.
Furthermore, in the General Penal Code of 1924, which returned the power of deciding punishment to the clerics, the following clause was added: "The amrād would be sentenced to the same punishment [that the judge decides for the older man] should he have participated [in the sexual encounter] willingly."
Ethnomusicologist John Baily commented that organizing gatherings with dancing bachas was not allowed in Herat in the late 1970s, mainly because violent fights often erupted at such events. German ethnographic research, conducted in the 1970s, observed the widespread practice of dancing boys or bachabozlik among Uzbek populations in northern Afghanistan. The research found such stances were prevalent among Afghan intellectuals, who either "denied the existence of the phenomenon in Afghanistan or among their own ethnic group" or associated it with illiteracy, gender segregation, and the limited sexual possibilities of rural areas. While the exchange of a few kisses and caresses was permissible between the bacha and bacha bāz, no sexual intercourse was allowed, or the relationship would end abruptly.