Afghanistan: Taliban Commanders Engage in Rampant Sexual Abuse of Young Boys

Robert Spencer: Women are so devalued and despised that boys are often considered preferable sexual partners. “Men are for pleasure,” goes the saying, “and women are for babies.” As long as a man marries and has children, he can carry on with boys is not considered a homosexual, and is not liable to be executed as such.

“Those are the ones brought near in the Gardens of Pleasure, a company of the former peoples and a few of the later peoples, on thrones woven, reclining on them, facing each other. There will circulate among them young boys made eternal with vessels, pitchers and a cup from a flowing spring.” — Qur’an 56:11-18

“And they will be given to drink a cup whose mixture is of ginger, a fountain within Paradise named Salsabeel. There will circulate among them young boys made eternal. When you see them, you would think them scattered pearls. And when you look there, you will see pleasure and great dominion.” — Qur’an 76:17-20

Bacha bazi is the pederastic practice in Afghanistan where Muslim men keep adolescent boys, known as “dancing boys” that involves sexual abuse and slavery of young boys by older powerful men, often Pashtuns. The practice involves the enslavement, human trafficking, and sexual abuse of impoverished children who are often forced to dress in women’s clothing and dance at male-only parties

“The children forced into ‘Bacha Bazi’ sexual servitude by the Taliban: The group has decriminalized marrying girls… but their commanders are guilty of equally depraved abuse towards boys,” by Eliana Silver, Daily Mail, May 30, 2026:

Adorned in makeup and dressed in brightly coloured women’s clothing, young boys are paraded before groups of powerful men to dance, before being subjected to rape.

For thousands of impoverished children in Afghanistan, this systemic sexual exploitation is the harrowing reality of Bacha Bazi.

The barbaric tradition, whose name translates to ‘boy play’, has persisted for centuries, turning boys into sex slaves for the country’s elite.

While Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers publicly claim to oppose the practice, Bacha Bazi continues as an open secret.

Survivors who have escaped speak of beatings, rape and psychological torment, only to be cast aside once they grow facial hair and are no longer considered desirable.

Many turn to prostitution, drug addiction or suicide, unable to escape the trauma they have endured.

Others face further violence upon returning home, while the suspension of much international aid following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 has left victims with limited access to support and rehabilitation.

All this takes place in a country where homosexuality can carry the death penalty and pederasty is supposedly punishable by lengthy prison sentences.

Despite the Taliban’s legal ban on the practice, a recent report suggests it remains widespread.

The US State Department in its latest Trafficking in Persons report, found that child soldier recruitment, human trafficking and Bacha Bazi continue in Afghanistan.

The report said the Taliban recruit children through coercion and deception, including false promises, and documented cases of Bacha Bazi involving Taliban officials as well as other armed groups. …

The horror of the situation was laid bare when Dan Quinn, a former US Special Forces captain, was relieved of his command and pulled from Afghanistan for attacking an American-backed Afghan militia commander who had kept a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave.

‘The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,’ Quinn later said.

‘But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban.’…