Homosexuality/Bisexuality

As reported on Globalgayz.com, in the The Guardian and in the San Francisco Chronicle the Pashtun practise of men having bacha bazi is increasingly widespread and accepted since the fall of the Taliban. This practise involves older men taking boys between the ages of nine and fifteen as sexual partners, though it is not locally considered to be ‘homosexuality’ and goes unpunished under the Penal Code. The US State Department went as far as to call the practise a ‘widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape.’

In AJ Afghanistan v Secretary of State for the Home Department the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal found that though homosexuality remains illegal in Afghanistan, the lack of convictions demonstrates a lack of ambition on the part of the State to prosecute. As has been held in other LGBTI asylum cases, a certain level of discretion on the part of a homosexual couple is to be expected when living in a community, even one that criminalises homosexuality.

Transgender persons

Title AJ (Risk to Homosexuals) Afghanistan v. Secretary of State for the Home Department
Asylum was granted but under the special circumstances of this case alone. Pre-HT &HJ discretion test is applied, but this particular applicant was already known to the community and the Court did not consider internal relocation a viable option.