Mission & Justice

12/7/08

Afghanistan must do more to end an age-old practice of young boys being kept as sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict has said. Radhika Coomaraswamy said the practice, called bacha bazi - literally boy play - was a taboo subject but she had heard of warlords and military commanders keeping boys and “exploiting them in terrible ways”. “Nobody talks about it; everyone says, ‘Well, you know, it’s been there for 1000 years so why do we want to raise this now?”‘ she said yesterday at UN headquarters in New York, reporting on a visit to Afghanistan last week.  “That seems to be the general attitude among everyone, but somebody has to raise it and it has to be dealt with.” Known as bacha bereesh, boys without beards, the victims of such abuse are teenagers who dress as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.

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28/06/08

It’s 7.30 on a cold winter morning, and the first of Canberra’s Marist College students are filtering in to the Pearce school. A 12-year-old boy makes his way towards the monastery, where the school’s resident brothers live. The brothers’ residence is strictly out of bounds to all students at all times. About 20 rothers live here at any given time in the dormitory-style accommodation. Although located on the school premises, between the secondary and primary buildings, the monastery is their home, and students are promptly ushered away if they even loiter near it. But this boy has special permission it’s his job to wake up Brother Kostka Chute. Most people would use an alarm clock, but Brother Kostka prefers one of his Year 7s to greet him first thing in the morning. It seems unusual, staff think, but then Brother Kostka does have a special bond with the boys. There’s nothing sinister, right?

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Karlis Salna; 9/5/08

A retired Marist brother who has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing students in his care at a Canberra school has been likened to an alcoholic in charge of a pub. John William Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, has been charged with 19 counts of committing an indecent act with a child. The litany of charges relate to the abuse of six boys aged between 13 and 15 who were students at Marist College in Canberra between 1981 and 1987.

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Jonathan Lis; 10/4/08

The father of the Jerusalem children subjected to horrific abuse succeeded yesterday in locating Shimon Gabai, one of the main suspects in the case, who had eluded police for the past few weeks. The father, whose name cannot be published, decided to help the police find all of the fugitive suspects, who are thought to have followed Rabbi Elior Chen’s directives for “correcting” children. Chen fled to Canada when the case broke. Early yesterday morning, the father contacted a Jerusalem detective, Motti Edri, and informed him that he had found the suspect, who was with him.

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