"More Dangerous Than Cocaine": Bacha Bazi in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

The purpose of this study was to offer an analysis of the sexual economy of bacha bazi; ("boy play") in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. The population focus of this study was khwaja sira, a culturally specific transgender and gender-diverse population in South Asia, legally recognized as a third gender in Pakistan. Drawing on fieldwork with khwaja sira in Mingora, Swat, Pakistan, we retrospectively examined how poverty and precarity shape the conditions where young boys are coerced into transactional sexual relationships with older men, a practice locally termed "bacha bazi." We conducted semi-structured interviews with 45 khwaja sira in Mingora regarding their lived experiences with bacha bazi in their youth. Findings demonstrate that youth vulnerability is structured by age, class, gender, and power, where life choices are made within constrained socioeconomic possibilities. The study centers the positionality of khwaja sira as adults reflecting on their experiences of marginalization and exploitation in their youth. Moving beyond reductive binaries of victimhood and agency under extreme constraint, the present study situates bacha bazi within intersecting theoretical frameworks that conceptualize hegemonic masculinity and moral economy. Bacha bazi relationships are therefore not only a site of exploitation, but also a performance of masculine dominance, prestige, and power. By offering a qualitative account of sexual economies and queer childhoods in South Asia, the findings reframe bacha bazi as both a transactional economy and a culturally embedded expression of power and sexuality in northwestern Pakistan.