This was the first moment in cinema I had seen a black man reassuring a potentially gay, black male that his existence was worth taking pride in.įor years we retreated away from one another. Ultimately my brother and I not only struggled with the homophobia that was embedded in Jamaican culture, and with the larger culture’s media that failed to empathetically portray our realities - we also struggled simply to love and support each other. When my mother received the news I watched her cry on the basement floor, begging for God to change us. Everything that I’d been told about my future as a “good black kid” shattered when I was 15 years old, and came out to my mother months later my older brother would come out as well. As a child, I was considered gifted because of my love for books and conditioned to think that obedience equaled safety in America. With every viewing since then, I see both the glaring differences and similarities between my journey and Chiron’s. When I saw Moonlight as a gay, black man at the age of 22, I was shaken to realize that this was the first moment in cinema I had seen a black man reassuring a potentially gay, black male that his existence was not only valid, but also worth taking pride in. Can’t let nobody make that decision for you.” Juan responds, “At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you gone be. Chiron then asks Juan if Blue is his truer name. During an outing to the beach Juan recalls a woman in Cuba giving him the nickname, Blue. Young Chiron is dealing with the homophobic bullying of his peers, a mother battling drug addiction, and uncertainty about his sexuality, when Juan, a neighborhood drug dealer, decides to become his mentor.
Even two years after its release, there is a scene in it that still reaches me. The 2016 film Moonlight is about Chiron - a black boy gradually becoming a man in America’s ghettos - coming to terms with his sexuality in three chapters. “We have heard anecdotal reports that many grow up to keep their own bachas, perpetuating the revolving door of abuse.Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work. “In the absence of any services to recover or rehabilitate boys who are caught in this horrendous abuse, it’s hard to know what happens to these children,” said Charu Lata Hogg, a London-based fellow at think tank Chatham House. In turn, many teen victims are said to grow up to have young boy lovers of their own, repeating the cycle of abuse. Bacha bazi results in fear among the children and a feeling of revenge and hostility develop in their mind.” “Such victims suffer from stress and a sort of distrust, hopelessness and pessimistic feeling. “The victims of bacha bazi suffer from serious psychological trauma as they often get raped,” AIHRC’s report said. Many of them are kidnapped and sometimes desperate poverty drives their families to sell them to abusers. The move comes after an AFP report last year revealed the Taliban was exploiting bacha bazi, one of the most egregious violations of human rights in the country, to mount deadly insider attacks in the volatile south.īeautiful boys: bacha bazi remains ingrained in #afghan power circles #childabuse /1bXBlm4sWeâ Afghanistan Today August 26, 2014īachas are typically aged between 10 and 18. It’s a centuries old practice in Afghanistan known as “bacha bazi” and in recent years it’s made a resurgence.Īfghanistan this week announced it is set to criminalise bacha bazi with a slew of stringent punishments laid out for the first time in a revised penal code. They are referred to as “bachas” and used as dancers at private parties by powerful warlords, commanders, politicians and other members of the elite who keep them as a symbol of authority and affluence and often sexually exploit them. The boys, typically aged from 10-18, are coerced or abducted from the streets, then dressed in women’s clothes and forced to dance as entertainment.
Rich and powerful men have been prowling the streets of Afghanistan in search of poor and orphaned boys to use as sex slaves and entertainment for centuries. THEY look for young boys who have nothing.