by THEO FARRANT & AP
In a Kabul neighborhood, a group of boys kick a yellow ball around a dusty playground, their boisterous cries echoing off the surrounding apartment buildings.
Dressed in sweaters and jeans or the traditional Afghan male clothing of baggy pants and long shirt, none stand out as they jostle to score a goal.
But unbeknown to them, one is different from the others.
At not quite eight years old, Sanam is a ‘bacha posh’ – a girl living as a boy.
One day, the girl with rosy cheeks and an impish smile had her dark hair cut short, donned boy’s clothes and took on a boy’s name: Omid.
Now she can play football and cricket with the boys, says she easily beats the neighborhood butcher’s son in wrestling, and can help her father at work.
Bacha posh (meaning ‘dressed up as a boy’ in Persian) is a practice in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan in which some families without sons will pick a daughter to live and behave as a boy.
The reasons parents might want to partake in the custom vary.
In Afghanistan’s heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, ‘bacha posh’ is the one tradition allowing girls access to the freer male world.
Some families consider it a status symbol, and some believe it will bring good luck for the next child to be born a boy.
Under the practice, a girl dresses, behaves and is treated as a boy, with all the freedoms and obligations that entails.
She can play sports, attend a madrassa, or religious school, and, sometimes crucially for her family, work.
Girls chosen as ‘bacha posh’ usually are the more boisterous, self-assured daughters.
But there is a time limit: once the girl reaches puberty, she is expected to revert to her biological gender, a transition that’s not always easy.
It is unclear how the practice is viewed by Afghanistan’s new rulers, the Taliban, who seized power in mid-August and have made no public statements on the issue.
Their rule so far has been less draconian than the last time they were in power in the 1990s, but women’s freedoms have still been severely curtailed.
Thousands of women have been barred from working, and girls beyond primary school age have not been able to return to the classroom in public schools.
With a crackdown on women’s rights, the tradition could become even more attractive for some families.
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