Inequalities between poor and rich have been well documented throughout recorded history, as is the exploitation of one by the other. Current examples include wealthy people requiring transplant surgery who travel to countries like Iran, China, India, the Philippines and South America to illegally purchase a kidney from a poor person. These people are now providing what Elliott Leyton describes as 'a new world market that offers the wealthy and the well-connected an indefinite extension of life, limited only by the abilities of current medical technology' (2000:40)1. Likewise, rich women, unable to conceive or carry a fetus to term, purchase ovum or rent out the uterus of a poor woman from India where surrogacy costs are considerably lower than those in the US or UK. According to Priti Sehgal, ‘This legal framework encourages more women to serve as surrogates, especially those from socio-economically weak backgrounds’ (2008).2.
After twenty-three years of war in Afghanistan, poverty is widespread. Child abduction and human trafficking is commonplace, girls under sixteen years old are forced into marriage, child sex abuse is frequent and, as the ABC 1 - 'Four Corners' program exposed last night, there is a growing practice of Bacha Bazi or 'boy play'. Boys between the ages of ten and fourteen years of age from Northern Afghanistan are lured by wealthy warlords and businessmen into living the life of a sex slave. They are trained in music and dance, wear make-up and female clothes, are traded and often killed if they disobey their masters. Although pedophilia is a crime, the authorities turn a blind eye. Indeed 'there is no concerted effort being made to stop the practice and the criminal activity that surrounds it'. 3. One man interviewed on the program, who had carried out his own investigations into Bacha Bazi said he wouldn't name names because he liked his life and job; hinting that his life could be destroyed and he could loose his job if he exposed those involved. It seems as though it's not only the poor dancing to the tune of the rich!
1. Leyton, Elliott. (2001) Department of Anthropology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s,
NFLD A1C 5S7, Canada (eleyton@morgan.ucs.mun.ca). 24 V 99.
1. Leyton, Elliott. (2001) Department of Anthropology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s,
NFLD A1C 5S7, Canada (eleyton@morgan.ucs.mun.ca). 24 V 99.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v41n2/002001/002001.text.html
2. Sehgal, Priti (2008). ‘Reproductive Tourism Soars in India: Adoption and Surrogacy Laws Have Yet to Catch Up’, The WIP
2. Sehgal, Priti (2008). ‘Reproductive Tourism Soars in India: Adoption and Surrogacy Laws Have Yet to Catch Up’, The WIP
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