SEXUAL ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF BOYS IN SOUTH ASIA A ...

job. 321 In a survey of truckers, more than one-half reported having sex with a man or boy, onethird
with a female sex worker and 11 per cent with a hijra. 322
Prisons in Pakistan are also a major venue for sexual abuse of boys. As of 2003, the country
had only two juvenile jails, and although law dictates that children should be incarcerated
separately from adults, many children are placed in adult prisons. There they experience
sexual abuse and face the risk of sexually transmitted infections. 323 Prison survey reports as
well as NGO research indicate that boys are routinely sexually abused by both inmates and
staff. 324 In 2000, during an investigation following a mutiny at Hyderabad Jail, the Army
rescued 50 juvenile prisoners who had been sexually abused and placed them in juvenile
detention facilities. 325
Like Afghanistan, Pakistan has accepted cultural precedents for man-boy sexual relationships,
known as bacha baazi. In these relationships, men of wealth and influence, including
political, business and military leaders, take on a ‘mistress’ in the form of a ‘beardless youth’.
The boys, usually drawn from impoverished families, are selected for their beauty and are
considered to be a matter of pride to their owners. This is most prevalent in the tribal areas of
the NWFP, but it exists less formally throughout the country. The city of Banu in the NWFP
is famous as a place where men seek attractive boys for concubinage. Here, at certain times of
the year, boys dress in pale lavender gowns and parade through the town, hoping to attract a
patron. 326 Often the boys are well provided with food, clothing and sometimes money by the
masters, and are sometimes supported even after they reach puberty and are replaced by a
younger boy. The tradition is well known and accepted in the NWFP, although it is formally
disapproved of. In the view of local men, bacha baazi relationships are not considered to be
prostitution because the boys offer sexual services to only one man as opposed to selling sex
to any man who is prepared to pay. 327
7.1.4 Sexual exploitation in pornography
The exposure of children, particularly boys, to pornography is ubiquitous throughout the
urban and semi-urban areas of the country. Internet cafés abound in markets, shopping plazas
and residential areas. In many, computer workstations are enclosed in small private cubicles.
Groups of boys pool their funds to purchase computer time, with which they download
pornographic pictures and movies, or watch blue movies on DVDs or VCDs. A study of
Internet cafés conducted by the PPA and Save the Children Sweden in 2001 found that 20 per
cent of the users are children and that 80 per cent of them were exposed to pornography. 328
321 Hussain, A., 2000, ‘Nowhere to hide’. In Frederick, J. (ed). ‘Fallen Angels: The sex workers of South Asia’.
322 Policy Project, 2003, ‘Adolescent and youth reproductive health in Pakistan: Status, policies, programmes
and issues’.
323 Ibid.
324 Sahil, 1998, ‘Child sexual abuse and exploitation in Pakistan’.
325 SPARC Newsletter, Issue No. 24, September 2000.
326 Haber, D., 1998, ‘The pleasure boys of Pakistan’s northwest frontier’ (unpublished manuscript).
327 ECPAT International and Pakistan Paediatrics Association, 2006, ‘Situational analysis report on prostitution
of boys in Pakistan (Lahore and Peshawar)’.
328 Pakistan Paediatric Association and Save the Children Sweden, 2001, ‘Exposure of children to pornography
at the Internet cafés’.
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