US Funded Afghan Jihad & US Funded "Bacha Bazi" (Paedophilia).? Why there is huge rise in Bacha Bazi? Courtesy Aamir Mughal

As the United States deepens its commitment to Afghanistan, FRONTLINE takes viewers inside the war-torn nation to reveal a disturbing practice that is once again flourishing in the country: the organized sexual abuse of adolescent boys. In The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi (Behind Taliban Lines) returns to his native land to expose an ancient practice that has been brought back by powerful warlords, former military commanders and wealthy businessmen. Known as "bacha bazi" (literal translation: "boy play"), this illegal practice exploits street orphans and poor boys, some as young as 11, whose parents are paid to give over their sons to their new "masters." The men dress the boys in women's clothes and train them to sing and dance for the entertainment of themselves and their friends. According to experts, the dancing boys are used sexually by these powerful men.

Afghanistan's poverty has been a driving force in the rise of bacha bazi in the last 15 years. It makes it easy for predators to prowl the streets targeting 'pretty' young boys, enticing them from their families with promises of work or education.

These promises more often than not come to nothing: instead, the boys are trained as dancers, made to perform to groups of men dressed as girls, bells on their flowing skirts and make up on the faces.

They command the attention of the room as they move to the traditional songs, with words which do more than hint at what is to come.

Bacha bazi is not a new phenomenon in a country famed for keeping its women and men separate. However, it was all but wiped out under the Taliban.

But with the fall of the extremist group, bacha bazi returned. It quickly became so acceptable that even the police would be sat among the dozen or so men cheering the boys on.

The fact homosexuality is forbidden in Islam is swept under the carpet by those who participate, who claim there is a loophole. They are not in love with the boys, and therefore not gay.

Soldiers fighting in Afghanistan after 2001 spoke of their surprise at watching grown men walking down the streets of the conservative country, hand in hand with a young boy.

But even the coalition forces looked the other way. 

Lance Corporal Geoffrey Buckley Jr told his father he was forced to listen to the screams of young boys being raped at night.

When the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission's report was released last year, it found the practice was still just as widespread as it had always been.

But the shame is so great, it is hard to put an exact figure on how many boys have been - or are still being - kept by their 'bacha baz', their master. It is so covert, barely any pictures exist of the young boys performing their dances.