Between rescue and abandonment of boys in Bacha Bazi : The gender trouble of liberal peace intervention in Afghanistan

Abstract This article critically examines the gendered and sexualized foundations of liberal interventionism through the case of Afghanistan, focusing on the underexplored Bacha Bazi practice that proliferated during the 2001–2021 US-led occupation. We address the contradiction between liberalism’s promise of gender justice and the violent gendered practices it sustains through militarized peacebuilding. While women’s rights are often invoked to legitimize intervention, this discourse obscures broader regimes of gendered violence, particularly against marginalized sexual and gender minorities. Drawing on feminist and queer theorizing, primary interviews with Afghan professionals and activists (2016), and secondary sources, we use critical discourse and frame analysis to interrogate how narratives of peace, security, and rescue justified intervention while reinforcing hegemonic masculinity and global hierarchies. Our findings reveal two central dynamics: first, liberal peacebuilding instrumentalized gendered suffering to advance geopolitical aims, especially through the trope of ‘saving women’ while ignoring or exploiting boys and queer populations; second, interventions aligned with – rather than dismantled – local patriarchal and militarized networks, entrenching gender-oppressive orders post-withdrawal. By situating Bacha Bazi within these transnational dynamics, we theorize liberal intervention as a violent gender regime and call for feminist and queer peacebuilding frameworks that centre marginalized voices.