© SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S.-funded Afghan National Police (ANP) continues to engage in the ancient local custom of men sexually abusing young boys, the United Nations reported this week.
ANP is a component of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF),
which the U.S. government has spent more than $80 billion to develop since the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001.
Known as
bacha bazi, or "boy play," U.N. investigators found that the act by Afghan forces persists.
In February 2018, Afghanistan
implemented revisions to its penal code that criminalized the cruel practice. However, the U.N.
reported this past March,
"Though bacha bazi is criminalized, prosecutions of cases involving the practice are rare and the practice remains common."
In its latest annual
report on children and armed conflict issued on Tuesday, the U.N. declared, "the United Nations verified four cases of sexual violence [in 2018], affecting two boys and two girls, perpetrated by the Afghan National Police (3) and the Afghan local police (1). The two boys were used as
bacha bazi."
U.N. officials noted in the March report that the ANP, a component of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), was behind the sexual abuse of the two boys.
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