CANADA - The Canadian army will conduct a formal review of whether Canadian soldiers were ordered to turn a blind eye to the sexual abuse of boys by
Afghanistan security forces in Kandahar. The boys are known as "bacha bereesh", boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.
It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses". Afghan police are battling to crackdown on the practice which has angered Islamic clerics who say those involved should be stoned for sodomy, forbidden under Islamic law.
The allegation that Canadian soldiers were told to "ignore" incidents of sexual assault involving their allies was leveled by a military chaplain last June in a report to her brigade commander.
The chaplain, Jean Johns, says she counseled a Canadian soldier who said he witnessed a boy being raped by an Afghan soldier in late 2006 or early 2007.
In a statement, the president of the board, Brig.-Gen. Glenn Nordick, says his eight-member panel will examine the claims to see what may have occurred at a forward operating base 20 kilometres from Kandahar.
"We will determine whether the allegations can be substantiated and whether such incidents were reported by the chain of command or other Canadian Forces networks," said Nordick.
The investigation will attempt to determine whether any other separate incidents might have occurred, and whether any Canadian soldiers were involved in such incidents.
The chaplain, who counsels soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder, wrote her report in March of this year, but had received no response until three months later when the allegations were made public.
Several other Canadian Forces chaplains say they have heard similar claims, but the Defence Department declined to investigate because no Canadian soldier had filed a formal complaint.
Afghanistan's ambassador in Ottawa welcomed the investigation, but stressed the government of President Hamid Karzai was expecting to work alongside the Canadian military and that any criminal activity would be dealt with by his country's justice system. "At this point, these are allegations and we all need to gather facts," said Omar Samad in an interview.
"I would like to see us get to the bottom of this. I would like to find out what may have happened and see how we can deal with such issues. We want to be able to deal with this using the full force of law."
Whispers of sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by Afghan soldiers against young boys have been commonly heard among Canadian troops, with many referring to such incidents as "man love Thursdays." There's even rumours of some Canadians taking part.
But the evidence has been overwhelmingly anecdotal, with most soldiers telling embedded journalists they've never witnessed such acts. Thus far there has only been one case brought to the public record, but there are doubtlessly more.
A Canadian soldier, who served in Afghanistan between September 2006 and February 2007 was quoted by a Toronto newspaper earlier this year as saying he heard an Afghan National Army soldier abusing a young boy and then saw the boy afterwards with visible signs of rape trauma.
Cpl. Travis Schouten now suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
The board of inquiry, which differs substantially from a military police investigation, is not expected to report until next spring.
David Statham, a retired senior staff officer at National Defence headquarters, said inquiry boards are not assembled over minor allegations or rumours. "They're not convened over something trifling," said the former naval commander, who worked with retired colonel Michel Drapeau, a noted military legal expert. "They've got some reason, more than just a suspicion."
Boards of inquiry - known by their acronym BOIs within the military - have a broad scope, looking not only at specific incidents but systemic failures of military policy and procedure.
THAILAND - It's been over a year since an international manhunt caught and arrested Christopher Paul Neil, who is now facing another jail sentence. The 33-year-old Canadian school teacher from British Columbia has been convicted of a second case of sexual assault in Thailand. The attack on a nine-year-old boy landed him five years in prison.
