There is currently no requirement for immigrants to give up their culture when they come to New Zealand. We’ve had Afgans in our courts and prisons for this also.
See also: The secret gay history of Islam.
Kabul: The 14-year-old Afghan boy said his teacher had asked him for “a little favour” in return for not failing him on his final exams. Then the man took him to the school library, locked the door and raped him, the boy said.
At the same school, a 17-year-old boy reported similar treatment from the school’s principal. He said the man had threatened to kill him if he told anyone.
But the boys did talk, giving their accounts to a child advocacy group in their province and repeating them later in interviews with The New York Times. The advocacy group discovered that those two boys were not the only victims. From just three schools in one area of Logar province, just south of Kabul, the group said it had taken statements from 165 boys who said they had been sexually abused at their schools or by local officials they went to for help.
Now, Afghanistan is again caught up in a discussion of rampant sexual abuse of children and of a deep reluctance by many officials to deal with the issue at all.
After talking with the TOLO news channel about the investigation, the leader of the Logar advocacy group, Mohammad Musa, and a colleague, Ehsanullah Hamidi, were detained by Afghanistan’s national intelligence agency late last week, the group says.
On Monday, former president Hamid Karzai said that if verified, the detention of Musa by the intelligence agency was “a very wrong thing.”
Musa has not been reachable for comment since late Thursday.
It is unclear whether the cases at the three schools are related. But the prevalence of systematic sexual abuse of boys in Afghanistan has been a problem for generations. Bacha bazi — it means boy play — is common among men in powerful positions who keep boys as sex slaves. Bacha bazi boys are forced to dress as girls and to dance for men before being raped. Sometimes the boys are prostituted to the highest bidder.
In an interview this month, Musa said that his group — the Logar Youth, Social and Civil Institution — began intensively investigating after a troubling Facebook post in May that showed men with boys in sexual positions.
The post came down quickly, Musa said, but the group was able to preserve many of the images.
The Logar group began methodically talking to students in the area, finding dozens who said they had been raped. Many of their accounts were confirmed by teachers or other people in the area.
The Logar provincial governor, Mohammad Anwar Ashaqzai, said officials were examining boys’ statements provided by the advocacy group. He said he was not aware of any rapes in the province’s schools.
“If we find these documents are incomplete and they are fake, then those who are involved will face the law and should be punished,” Ashaqzai said.
Still, in response to the group’s accusations, the Ministry of Education in Kabul said November 14 that it was sending a delegation to the province to investigate.
“We don’t trust anyone, neither the Taliban nor the government,” Musa said. One school is in an area contested by the Taliban, and two are in government-controlled areas.
A Taliban spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
A teacher at one school in Logar, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Hamid, said he had spoken to 13 boys who said they had been raped by teachers there. He said the families of three of those boys had moved away to avoid the social stigma of rape, especially after images were posted on Facebook.
“It’s a crisis,” Hamid said. “We want to do something to stop this mafia, but we don’t know what to do.”
As the accounts unfolded, at least seven boys who said they had been raped were found dead, Musa said, most likely at the hands of their own families.
‘A little favour’: 165 students report rape by teachers, officials
