Today I watched another Frontline episode, The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan. Never has an hour of television filled me with so much rage. Even now, hours after watching, I'm still seething.
The film investigates the child sex slave rings, known as bacha bazi, of the Afghanistan. Young boys are bought or coaxed away from their families to be trained as professional "dancers" for high ranking Afghani businessmen. The boys entertain large groups of wealthy men by dancing and singing while wearing elaborate outfits and makeup. The film implies that the men can place holds on the boys for private entertaining purposes. We're talking about child slavery and prostitution here, plain and simple. It's wrapped in a cloak of culture and tradition, but the truth is hard to hide when we are shown footage of men leering and whistling at young children as they dance and sing provocatively.
Typically I'm the patron saint of cultural relativity; the way you talk, eat, dress, and act are all products of your culture and cannot be judged as better or worse than another culture, only different. But even I have to draw the line somewhere, and it seems my line appears in front of bacha bazi.
Frankly I was surprised how upset this film made me. Not that child slavery wouldn't upset me, but I was getting angry to the point of to hurt someone. Watching these men be interviewed, as they outright denied that their interest in the boys was sexual, I wanted to cause them physical pain for what they were doing to these boys. I didn't want to talk to them, to try and reason with them and convince them to stop. I really wanted to hurt them. Even more surprising than my violent impulses was the reasoning behind it: I don't think these men will ever change. They've been living this way for 50, 60 years. I honestly don't see any amount of debating or threatening making any difference in who they are or who they are attracted to. I guess that's why I wanted to hurt them; if I can't change them, I want to at least stop them.
This doc greatly affected me, and left me with a lot to think about. It can be found on the PBS site.
Here is the first 2 minutes of the film. It captures the the whole thing really well; what these men do (buy boys), why (for entertainment and pleasure) and what they offer the boys ('experience', and money to give their families).
I'd be remiss not to mention the (semi) recent investigation into private security contractor DynCorp who used American tax dollars to pay off pimps who purchased boys in bacha bazi parties for high ranking Afghanis and police. Unbelievable.
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