He had never heard of bacha bazi, the practice of wealthy or powerful men conscripting adolescent boys into sexual slavery. When he was 14 his father died and his mother placed him in the care of a family friend.
Then they began clapping with the music as the middle-aged dancer spun around them in a blur of light and color. He was no dancing boy, but a man of about 40, his face starkly made up, his blue dress covered with tiny bells and sequins.įor a moment the baffled partygoers only stared. At around midnight the host threw back a curtain and a dancer leapt through the doorway. Jokes went around about the reception a delicate youth like the Chinoise could look forward to in a Kabul jail.īut a last-minute substitute was found. Then someone's phone rang: The boy had been arrested by Afghan police while dancing at a wedding. He was the jealously guarded 'property' of a wealthy Kabul businessman who had promised to bring him around later in the evening. Many had seen him dance at other parties. The 16-year-old Hazara youth was known as 'the Chinoise' for his striking oriental features. Some were drinking while others were smoking hashish in open windows, looking down into the street of the middle-class Kabul district of Karte-Char as they anticipated the boy's arrival. The 20-odd men who had come to the party were expecting a dancing boy, or bacha bereesh.
