Bacha bazi

Forced labour and slavery
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Bacha bazi (Persian: بچه بازی, lit. 'boy play') 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. 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.