GYRATING awkwardly in dark eye make-up and girls’ clothes, the dancing boys of Afghanistan twirl for their depraved masters. These wretched children - some as young as ten - aren’t just forced to take part in a pitiful cabaret act. After the music stops the boys are raped by predators, usually from the higher echelons of Afghan society. Many of the youngsters have been abducted from their families or even sold by their parents into a life of sexual servitude. Yet, no one watching will intervene to stop the so-called bacha bazi, meaning “boy play”. For the sickening practice of older men taking pre-pubescent boys as sex toys dates back to the 13th century in Afghanistan - and is far from taboo in the Taliban-ruled nation today. Despite homosexuality being punishable by death under the barbaric religious leaders known as mullahs, bacha bazi is still commonplace, The Sun can reveal. As many as half of all men in tribal areas of the south, predominantly inhabited by the Pashtun ethic group, are believed to engage in the abuse. Military veterans who served in Afghanistan have long voiced their disgust at the bacha bazi they heard about, as the West expended much blood and treasure after the 2001 invasion. During a visit to Afghanistan’s Helmand province in 2009 a sergeant in the British Army told me the abuse was “f***ing disgusting and totally unacceptable”. US military veteran Edward Summerfield said: “One Afghan police chief in particular had like maybe a 10-year-old boy that he would show off to other leaders. “I didn't witness this myself but the interpreters would tell us that the boy could be rented out for all male parties. He would dance and perform and then the guys would have sex with the boy.” Summerfield said the US forces felt “disgust” and would “lose all respect” for the Afghans involved. “We couldn’t wrap our heads around it - it's just so foreign that that's a normal thing for them to do,” he added. Speaking to the YouTube War & Life project about the child victims, he added: “We'd go into this one particular Afghan Local Police (ALP) station and there was one kid that had a thousand yard stare that none of us are ever gonna have. “You couldn't see enough combat to be as disturbed as this kid was. “He was glazed over and would just stare at the wall and he was dressed in nice Afghan clothes and he would serve the men all their tea. “But he would just sit there looking like the most traumatised human being I've ever seen in my life.” US soldiers dismissed Yet Summerfield says US troops were instructed by top brass not to interfere in Afghans’ “culture”. He cited the case of a Green Beret kicked out of the military after beating up one of the rapists. Astonishingly, the decorated US Special Forces soldier - Sergeant 1st Class Charles Martland - was discharged from the military in 2015 for assaulting an Afghan Local Police (ALP) commander. The Afghan was said to have kidnapped a boy, tied him to a post and raped him for up to two weeks. When his mother appealed to the Green Berets for help the Afghan commander was brought to a US base and questioned by Martland and detachment commander Captain Daniel Quinn. The pair lost their tempers after the Afghan - who is said to have admitted to raping the boy - then further angered the American soldiers by showing his total disregard for the seriousness of what he’d done. Interpreters would tell us that the boy could be rented out for all male parties. He would dance and perform and then the guys would have sex with the boyEdward Summerfield Quinn said: “He started laughing when we talked about what a big deal this was.” Martland and Quinn then beat up the Afghan. Martland later wrote: "After the child rapist laughed it off and referenced that it was only a boy, Captain Quinn picked him up and threw him.” Martland then proceeded to “body slam him multiple times,” kick him in the rib cage and put his foot on his neck. The Green Beret added: "I continued to body slam him and throw him for fifty metres until he was outside the camp. "He was never knocked out and he ran away from our camp.” The pair said they took the law into their own hands because they believed the Army or local authorities wouldn’t take action. The Pentagon denied that telling soldiers to look the other way is official practice. Both men were discharged from the military but Martland appealed his case and was reinstated in 2016. Abducted by police Bacha bazi still thrives in the supposedly deeply moral and conservative Afghanistan of today. After the Taliban first emerged and swept to power in 1996 they outlawed bacha bazi and the abuse was driven underground. But following the 2001 US invasion - and with the Taliban regime toppled - the kidnapping, trafficking and raping of young boys became widespread once again. A UK Government document published in November says bacha bazi persists with “boys who are sold by their families or abducted by others, including police officers…” The report adds: “Cases are underreported due to stigma and fear, and victims have limited access to support and rehabilitation due to reduced international aid.” A 2024 US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report revealed how survivors have reported an “overwhelming understanding that bacha bazi is committed by the powerful, including community leaders and, in previous years, military commanders, police, and government officials.” Sick shopping list The sexual exploitation of young boys is even seen as a warped status symbol by some. One Afghan leader laid bare his own depravity in a TV documentary. Asked what he looked for in a dancing boy, Dastager told a PBS Frontline documentary: “He should be attractive, good for dancing, around 12 or 13, and good-looking. I tell their parents that I will train them. "I'll get a dancer to teach him dancing...We give the family money, and tell them that I'll look after him. “I'll get him clothes and give him money. I pay for all his expenses. He doesn't need to worry about anything.” The former member of the Northern Alliance resistance forces revealed he had “taken in” - that means subjected to sickening sexual abuse - more than 2,000 boys. When the youngsters begin to show facial hair they are usually ousted by their abusers. Some become prostitutes, others turn to opium. Despite Afghanistan being once more under the grip of the Taliban, bacha bazi remains commonplace. Women have been driven to the margins of society while some religious conservatives consider the abuse acceptable if the man doesn’t love the boy. It's a warped and sadistic notion for a practice that is organised paedophilia by another name.