We’re constantly worried, constantly hiding,” Farhad told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, wearing a floral dress and bright lipstick as he spoke at a friend’s home in the capital, Kabul. Ali Abdi, a PhD candidate at Yale University who has been researching same-sex relations in Afghanistan since 2016, said there could be hundreds of former dancing boys in Kabul making a living as dancers or sex workers. “I realised many men wanted to sleep with me and I needed money. Some are now my clients and pay me; others are friends who I decide to have sex with,” he said. “My mother beat me and my father wanted to kill me,” Ramesh recalled. Weeks later, the family moved from a northern town to the capital.
Some transgender women are growing beards, while some lesbians have said they are feeling under pressure to be “more feminine”. They were previously able to maintain their identity under the guise of bacha posh, a practice in Afghanistan where a family without sons will choose a girl to live and behave as a boy, allowing them to move around more freely. Sadat was an organizer of a nascent LGBTQ rights movement in Afghanistan while working as a political science professor at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul.
Nasrullah B.’s close friend, who was gay and knew that Nasrullah was gay, joined the Taliban. “He posted on his Facebook the day after August 15, saying, ‘I’m in the Taliban—if you need anything contact me,’” Nasrullah said. The two ran into each other at a social gathering a few weeks later, and the Taliban member asked loudly in front of the other attendees whether Nasrullah was still with his boyfriend. Aryan tried to intervene, approaching one woman in the mob to ask, “Why are you doing this? … We are going to call the police and they’re going to clean you from this place.”
“I am not aware of a gay relationship in Afghanistan where two males openly express love for each other and want to live as a couple to the exclusion of any sexual relationship with a female.” But human rights campaigners voiced concerns not only about the abuse of young boys but the impact on those forced into this kind of exploitation in their later lives. The practice of “bacha bazi” – translated as “boy play” – involves boys dressing up and dancing at private parties, but it was outlawed in 2017 amid concerns it fostered sexual abuse and servitude of young boys by powerful, older men. They know they could be killed, with impunity, if they reveal their sexuality. Rameen, 31, tells the story of his friend, Zabi, who was killed by his family after coming out as gay, a so-called “honor killing” usually reserved for young women.
“It’s not hyperbolic to say that gay people will get weeded out and exterminated by the Taliban, just like the Nazis did,” he said. “People are messaging me saying here’s my passport, here’s all my information, please get me out of this country, I’m going to die.” Sayed told Insider he dreams of one day living authentically as a gay man in Canada. Homosexual sex has technically been punishable by death in Afghanistan for decades, but according to the UK Country of Origin Report on Afghanistan, it has not been applied since the end of the Taliban’s first regime in 2001. Several gay Afghans spoke to Insider and described how they live in fear of their life after the Taliban’s victory.
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II. The Bigger Picture: Entrenched Violence and Discrimination Against LGBT People in Afghanistan
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said a “concerning number of civil society activists and media workers have been detained since early 2023.” “The Taliban are an authoritarian regime and want to control all aspects of Afghan life,” he said. “The Taliban want all Afghans to meet foreign officials only after getting their approval.” “We are not a political or military organization that needs to have secret contacts,” Wesa’s elder brother, Attaullah, told Radio Azadi. “We have campaigned for education, which is our human and Islamic right.” With the help of his vast network of volunteers, Pen Path claims to have distributed stationery and books to more than 1.5 million children across Afghanistan.
“It was a warning for us, for other gays. Now we keep to ourselves; we live a hidden life. And a hidden life is no life at all.” Both men describe being robbed, beaten up and blackmailed, and receiving death threats. They’ve even eluded police “honey traps” that could have seen them thrown in prison without charge, simply on suspicion of being gay. Naveed and Rameen, young gay men in the capital Kabul have lost count of the number of times they’ve been lured into dangerous situations on what they believed to be dates.
Rain, Floods Kill At Least Three In Afghanistan
Afghan women and girls take part in a protest in front of the Ministry of Education in Kabul on March 26, 2022, demanding that high schools be reopened for girls. IS-K also claimed a bombing near a checkpoint at the Kabul ChinaLoveCupid military airport on January 1 that killed up to 20 people and an attack in December on a Kabul hotel frequented by businesspeople. At least five Chinese nationals were wounded in the December attack on the hotel.
In Afghanistan’s conservative, religious society, sex outside marriage and same-sex sexual activity are illegal. Pressure to conform can cause profound distress, and “creates a lot of psychological problems for the person themselves and their families,” said Khalil Rahman Sarwary, a psychology lecturer at Kabul University. Exactly how many Afghans live in same-sex relationships is unclear as most wouldn’t admit to it.
To digital platforms and social media companies
However, when the Taliban, which had been in power from 1996 to late 2001, regained control of the country in August 2021, the situation dramatically worsened. The Taliban’s August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan has led to international concerns for the safety and livelihood of vulnerable populations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex Afghans. Same-sex activity was already criminalized and punishable by death in the country before the Taliban took control, but the new regime’s mandate to rule with Sharia law makes the fate of LGBTQI Afghans even more precarious than before.
“Civilians are being killed. I don’t think I will ever speak in front of them.” As a United Nations member state, Afghanistan has affirmed acceptance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the provisions of which are broadly accepted to reflect customary international law. “I had a great life,” said Mirwais K., who owned a company with his partner where they employed other LGBT people and set aside a portion of their profits to assist LGBT people in need. Was on a blind date in 2018 when a man raped him using objects.
One young man asked about English slang words, and offered the tip that the Afghan word “milk” also means masturbation. He then talked about prostitutes, mentioning a Chinese restaurant that fronts for a brothel, clueing me in to the open secret that Kabul is rampant with prostitution, tailored to the needs of foreign workers. The conversation was stilted, and perhaps they needed to be put at ease as much as I did. Munir at times translated as I asked about life under the Taliban. This broke the tension, and several men brought out photo albums.The men who had gathered together were a masculine bunch. Munir’s brother, who I’ll call Abdul, was a military martial arts teacher, Syed an auto mechanic, and several were bodybuilders.
Prior to 2003, little or no HIV-AIDS education or treatment existed. As of 2008, the official number of people living with HIV-AIDS is 504, although the actual number is suspected of being higher, possibly in the thousands. Low literacy rates, weak infrastructure and traditional social mores make it difficult to introduce comprehensive public health education initiatives. Afghanistan’s population is over 99% Muslim, and the country’s Constitution stipulates that Islam shall be the official religion.