The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

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With major funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.

Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation.

Committed to raising public awareness.

And by the Frontline Journalism Fund.

>> Tonight on Frontline...

In an Afghanistan ravaged by war and poverty, an ancient tradition has been secretly revived: young boys sold by their families to wealthy merchants and warlords, taught to dance and entertain, and used for sex.

>> It's a form of slavery, sexual slavery.

>> Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi goes undercover to investigate the illegal practice known as Bacha Bazi.

>> To expose the world of Bacha Bazi, first I had to get inside it.

>> He uncovers the buying and selling of boys as young as 11, the dancing rituals, the sexual exploitation that can lead to murder... >> Last year, this boy was killed in this area.

>> ...and the officials who refuse to act.

>> The Afghan criminal justice system is not working.

>> Tonight, Frontline takes you inside the illicit sex trade of "The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan."

>> NARRATOR: Najibullah Quraishi is an Afghan journalist who has been living in exile.

He left Afghanistan after he was almost beaten to death while investigating a massacre of prisoners during the war in 2001.

Now, he was returning to conduct a new investigation, this time into the exploitation of poor children in Afghanistan.

>> QURAISHI: My country was always poor, but it was the conditions of the children that really shocked me.

>> Allah, Allah.

Allah, Allah.

Allah, Allah.

>> NARRATOR: Najibullah had returned to investigate reports Afghan boys are vulnerable to being sexually abused by powerful men who have brought back an ancient practice banned under the Taliban and still illegal under Afghan law.

It's called Bacha Bazi.

Translation: "Boy play."

>> NARRATOR: The DVDs show Afghan boys dressed in women's clothing, dancing before audiences made up entirely of men.

The boys are street orphans or boys bought from poor parents in the countryside.

It's common knowledge in this world that after the dancing, these boys are often sold to the highest bidder or shared among powerful men for sex.

No one had yet penetrated the secretive world of Bacha Bazi, but Najibullah was heading to northern Afghanistan to meet a group of men who had agreed to take him inside the dancing boy culture.

Near the northern city of Takhar, he arranged to meet one of those men, called Dastager.

>> QURAISHI: To expose the world of Bacha Bazi, first I had to get inside it.

So I had decided to tell Dastager that we were making a film about this same custom in Europe, and we were interested to see how it was practiced in Afghanistan.

Dastager seemed to accept this explanation.

>> NARRATOR: During the war against the Russians, Dastager was a mujahedeen commander.

Today, he's a very successful businessman.

He owns a car dealership in Takhar, importing vehicles from the Far East, along with a string of other businesses.

A respectable businessman and a devout Muslim by day; at night, he leads a double life.

>> NARRATOR: Dastager invited Najibullah to meet one of his favorite dancing boys.

Imam is 15 years old and is a veteran performer.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Imam was borrowed from his owner for this small party, staged for a few select men in Takhar.

>> NARRATOR: The musician, Rafi, a close friend of Dastager, is an important figure in Bacha Bazi circles in Takhar.

>> NARRATOR: Golhom, another friend of Dastager, owns a restaurant in Takhar.

>> NARRATOR: There had been an argument.

Some of the other men wanted to take Imam home tonight, but Dastager was having none of it.

>> NARRATOR: Najibullah caught up again with Dastager at one of his favorite spots, a swimming hole for men and boys.

He asked him how the practice of Bacha Bazi, which had almost died out in Afghanistan, was brought back to the country.

>> NARRATOR: As a former Northern Alliance commander, Dastager remains one of the most powerful men in Takhar.

At night, he travels with a bodyguard provided by the police.

>> NARRATOR: Dastager lives in a wealthy neighborhood.

He is married and has two young sons.

>> NARRATOR: Though he has sons of his own, Dastager was looking for a new boy in his life.

>> NARRATOR: Dastager had arranged to pick up his new boy here at his uncle's barber shop.

We have disguised the identity of the boy, who we'll call "Shafiq," for reasons that will become clear as his story unfolds.

>> QURAISHI: He said the boy, Shafiq, was 11 years old, but to me he looked no more than nine.

>> QURAISHI: It was clear Shafiq knew nothing about the world of Bacha Bazi he was about to enter.

>> NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Najibullah was meeting more of Dastager's Bacha Bazi friends, including Mestary, a former senior commander with the Northern Alliance.

Mestary is still a very powerful man, with close links to some of the biggest warlords in Afghanistan.

He invited Najibullah to a gathering in the mountains with other commanders.

>> NARRATOR: 250 miles west of Takhar, Najibullah tracked down another friend of Dastager's.

He's known as "The German."

>> NARRATOR: The German acts as a Bacha Bazi pimp, supplying boys to some of the rich and powerful men in the region.

>> NARRATOR: The German couldn't find the boy he was looking for, but he did find other potential recruits wandering in the park.

>> NARRATOR: 11-year-old Shafiq had been living with Dastager in a separate house he keeps for his Bacha Bazi boys.

>> NARRATOR: This is his first day of training with Rafi to become a dancing boy.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: As Najibullah talked with Shafiq, it's just possible to hear Rafi in the background, whispering the answers to him.

>> NARRATOR: Rafi told Najibullah the training would take a year, six months to teach Shafiq to sing and play music and another six months to dance.

>> QURAISHI: As we left Shafiq in Rafi's hands, I knew the boy had no idea what else will be expected of him when he becomes a dancing boy.

My fears for him grow.

A few days later, we were driving with Mestary and Dastager.

They didn't realize our camera was still running as we overheard their conversation about what they had done with another young boy.

>> NARRATOR: Bacha Bazi is such a taboo subject in Afghanistan that no one knows how widespread it really is.

The first hints come from a recent report compiled for UNICEF by Nazir Alimy.

>> We are particularly concerned about what has been called the Bacha Bazi system or practice, where there are young boys increasingly associated with military commanders.

>> NARRATOR: The UN's Radhika Coomaraswamy was one of the first international figures to speak out publicly against Bacha Bazi.

>> We feel that a campaign should be run to raise awareness about this issue and to stop this practice.

Whenever I mentioned this topic to Afghans or even the diplomatic community, it was as if I had dropped a big brick.

At no point do they say that this doesn't happen.

It's just a kind of, "Let's not talk about it," you know.

It's a taboo subject.

>> NARRATOR: The producers showed her some early footage they'd gathered.

>> It's a disgusting practice.

You saw that boy's face, that first one that was taken in that car, I mean that complete trusting innocence.

It's just absolutely horrific.

It's a form of slavery, taking a child, keeping him.

It's a form of sexual slavery.

We have to ensure that we take them out of that reality because it's terribly exploitative of them.

>> NARRATOR: Under Afghan criminal law, it is illegal to buy or sell a child or to commit sexual acts with children.

Even the dancing boy parties are illegal because the boys are owned by masters.

♪ ♪ Although most parties take place in secret, this one was part of a large celebration for men at a wedding in Takhar.

Rafi the musician was there; he'd organized the entertainment.

That's where Najibullah met Abdullah, just 13.

>> NARRATOR: Abdullah's owner and Rafi sat nearby, listening to the interview.

>> The Afghan criminal justice system is not working, and that is a big issue.

The only way you stop Bacha Bazi is if you prosecute people who actually commit the crime.

And that's what we need because the laws are there in the books against this practice.

>> NARRATOR: Najibullah went to see police authorities in Takhar province to ask if those laws are being enforced.

The deputy chief of police is Mahmud Al-Hassan.

>> NARRATOR: But what about their own police officers, like Satar Khan, chief of the youth crime department?

Najibullah's camera had discovered officer Khan in the audience watching the dancing at that illegal Bacha Bazi wedding party.

Not only that, he found the police department's chief investigator, Jabar Khan, there, too.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Four months had passed.

Shafiq had started his dancing lessons ahead of schedule.

Dastager had chosen as his tutor his own favorite dancer, Imam.

>> NARRATOR: Imam had also been thinking about his future.

>> NARRATOR: After he turns 18, Imam said, he plans to become the master of his own stable of dancing boys.

>> NARRATOR: At his restaurant, Dastager's friend Golhom introduced Najibullah to the boy he owns, 14-year-old Nemat.

>> NARRATOR: Najibullah, sensing that all was not right with the boy, asked to speak to him alone.

>> NARRATOR: Gholom agreed.

>> NARRATOR: Najibullah would discover that he too knew one of those boys.

Before he met Dastager, he had made an earlier trip to northern Afghanistan carrying a camcorder to document his initial research into Bacha Bazi.

♪ ♪ He'd filmed this party in the late summer of 2008.

15-year old Hafiz was one of the most sought-after dancing boys in the region.

Mestary knew the boy.

>> NARRATOR: When Najibullah returned to Afghanistan over a year later, he tried to find Hafiz again, only to be told the boy had been murdered.

>> QURAISHI: Last year, this boy was killed in this area, so I'm trying to find his family, friends or someone to know him, to talk about it.

>> NARRATOR: He met Hafiz's brother, Javad, who said he would tell Najibullah the story.

Javad and his mother told Najibullah that Hafiz's master, a well-known drug baron and warlord, had mistreated Hafiz.

Javad said he helped his brother escape, and then the threats began.

>> NARRATOR: Javad and his mother said Ahmadullah, the policeman, was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

But just a few months later, he was released.

They said local people believe that Hafiz's former owner paid off the authorities.

>> NARRATOR: After weeks of negotiating with Dastager, he had finally agreed to allow Najibullah to visit Shafiq's rural village to meet the boy's family.

>> NARRATOR: Although he had started the day in a good mood, as he and Rafi drove to the village, Najibullah sensed Dastager was growing suspicious of his motives.

It was clear he regretted agreeing to the visit.

>> NARRATOR: Shafiq seemed different, too.

He refused to hold the hand of the man who was introduced to Najibullah as his father.

>> QURAISHI: It seemed clear to me something had happened to Shafiq.

He appeared disturbed.

He wasn't the same young boy I had first met.

>> NARRATOR: Later that day, as Najibullah was speaking with some other boys near the village, Dastager became extremely agitated.

>> QURAISHI: Just I heard from Dastager that the boy has disappeared and singer and Dastager are looking for the boy.

But they're really worried and saying, "What should we say to his dad?"

And he disappeared.

>> NARRATOR: Dastager and Rafi seemed to panic in their rush to find Shafiq.

>> NARRATOR: They failed to find Shafiq, and Dastager began to blame Najibullah for the boy's disappearance.

>> QURAISHI: Suddenly the boy, the young boy, disappeared.

And we asked Dastager to take us back to that boy.

And Dastager refused.

And he said he doesn't want to filming anymore.

So this is the time for us to leave the country.

As we left Takhar, I felt terrible about Shafiq and all the other boys.

But there seemed little we could do.

Given Dastager's power and connections, we couldn't go to the police.

And we had been warned that staging a rescue could put a boy in even more danger.

It felt like we have all abandoned the boys of Afghanistan.

>> NARRATOR: What would happen next was a story of intrigue and unexpected drama.

It began when Najibullah returned to England to begin the editing of this film.

>> Rafi was the main guy.

He's the guy who actually arranges the boys for the parties.

>> NARRATOR: He and producer Jamie Doran got news that Shafiq had been found and returned to Dastager.

His training as a dancing boy was continuing with Rafi.

>> Did you hear him?

Did you hear Rafi giving him the answers?

>> Yeah.

>> NARRATOR: Unwilling to stand back and do nothing, and together with Frontline, they consulted Western authorities and child welfare experts in Afghanistan for advice.

But because of Dastager's connections to the local authorities, Najibullah suggested a private effort and enlisting an unlikely ally: the powerful warlord Mestary.

>> Has Mestary really changed much?

>> QURAISHI: He seemed completely changed.

He's changed his mind and he helped us a lot, basically.

Mestary had kept his own Bacha Bazi boys many years ago, but as I spoke him by phone, he seemed to have become more sensitive to the damage done by Bacha Bazi and he agreed to help Shafiq.

>> I think it's important to understand that Mestary is a far more powerful character than Dastager, and Dastager is well aware of the connections that Mestary has.

So we felt pretty confident that Mestary would be able to persuade Dastager to give up the boy.

>> NARRATOR: It was mid-January, 2010, when Mestary showed up in Takhar.

He was expecting to take custody of Shafiq and return him to his family, but there was no sign of the boy.

He went looking for Rafi.

Then he called Najibullah with terrible news.

Shafiq was dead.

Rafi had told Mestary that several weeks earlier, there had been an accident, that a heavy fertilizer bag had fallen off a truck and killed Shafiq.

>> QURAISHI: Then I spoke with Rafi on the phone, and he said the same thing.

He said the boy has been killed and there is no Shafiq.

We were really concerned, everyone.

Then we put the phone down and we called him again, and we told Mestary to chase around Takhar, to go everywhere and please find his dad or anyone.

How can we prove Shafiq is dead?

>> NARRATOR: Then Mestary used his contacts with Afghan government authorities to push for Rafi to be interrogated.

Under pressure, Rafi finally admitted that he and Dastager had made up the whole story about the accident to avoid giving up the boy.

Shafiq was alive, somewhere near Takhar.

>> NARRATOR: In February, Najibullah came back to Afghanistan.

He'd been assured that the boy was safe.

The authorities had intervened and helped relocate his family to another region of Afghanistan.

>> NARRATOR: In a long, secretive journey, Mestary took Najibullah to a mountain village far from Takhar, a location we've also had to disguise.

There had always been a worry about returning the boy to his father, but getting to the village, Najibullah was surprised to discover that he was a different man than the one he had interviewed months earlier.

>> NARRATOR: Convinced he was indeed Shafiq's father, Najibullah told the family he had brought additional funds-- personal contributions from the producers and Frontline staff-- to help the family resettle and see that Shafiq gets an education.

>> QURAISHI: Shafiq's face was completely different.

He was so bright, and he was so happy.

And he had lots of cousins, was playing inside the house.

Outside, a very happy family.

>> NARRATOR: Shafiq is reluctant to talk about his life with Dastager and Rafi, but he seems safe, and Najibullah is determined to keep connected to him and his family.

>> QURAISHI: As I told to Shafiq's dad, that every six months myself I will come and visit, and I will see Shafiq's life.

I will go to Shafiq's school to make sure that he is safe and is studying.

>> Afghanistan is a dangerous country for children and adults alike.

The great thing about this new situation is that we've managed to get Shafiq away from Takhar and away from Dastager.

He's under the protection of government, he's under the protection even of Mestary.

>> NARRATOR: Before he left Afghanistan, Najibullah had one last stop to make.

He wanted to track down Dastager.

They finally met on the outskirts of Takhar.

Dastager was sticking to his story.

>> QURAISHI: I'm not sure why he continued to lie about Shafiq, but it was a tricky situation, so I decided not to confront him.

>> NARRATOR: A month later, as news of this film reached Afghanistan, Mestary reported that the Afghan government was taking further action.

An Afghan government source confirmed that police detectives from Kabul had arrested Rafi on abuse charges and that Dastager had fled from Takhar.

But just last week, sources in Takhar said both men were back in town and that Rafi, no longer in custody, was back in business, supplying boys for Bacha Bazi parties.

>> There's more on this story at Frontline's website, where you can watch the full program again online.

♪ ♪ Get answers to frequently asked questions about this film and Shafiq's story.

Read more of the interviews with those who have researched and spoken out about the illegal practice of Bacha Bazi.

>> Only way you stop Bacha Bazi is if you prosecute people who actually commit the crime.

>> Learn how donations are helping Shafiq and his family in their new home.

Then share your thoughts about this report at pbs.org.

>> Next time on Frontline... >> Too many!

Too soon!

>> A movement against childhood vaccines.

>> These mothers know what made their child sick.

>> Something happened to our children, which then lead to autism.

>> But is their fear warranted?

>> 12 epidemiological studies show that that wasn't true.

>> And is there a public health risk?

>> It's an outbreak waiting to happen.

>> "The Vaccine War."

Watch Frontline.

>> Frontline's "The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan" is available on DVD.

To order, visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

>> Frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

With major funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.

Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation.

And by the Frontline Journalism Fund.

>> You're watching PBS.