Joel Brinkley
Western forces fighting in southern
All of this was so disconcerting that the
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a
Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are
President
As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time." He added, "I didn't see Karzai with anyone. He was in his palace most of the time." He, too, declined to be identified.
In
So, why are American and
Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghans cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can't even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.
"How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old
Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: "Women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are "unclean" and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli's team "how his wife could become pregnant," her report said. When that was explained, he "reacted with disgust" and said "'how could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?'"
That helps explain why women are hidden away -- and stoned to death if they are perceived to have misbehaved. Islamic law also forbids homosexuality. But the pedophiles explain that away. It's not homosexuality, they aver, because they aren't in love with their boys.
Addressing the loathsome mistreatment of Afghan woman remains a primary goal for coalition governments, as it should be. But what about the boys, thousands upon thousands of little boys who are victims of serial rape over many years, destroying their lives -- and Afghan society.
"There's no issue more horrifying and more deserving of our attention than this," Cardinalli said. "I'm continually haunted by what I saw."
As one boy, in tow of a man he called "my lord," told the
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(C) 2010 Joel Brinkley