Afghans' growing appetite for porn

ON THE TV screen, the two naked young women writhe together to the sounds of Hotel California as the occasional crackle of gunfire punctuates the Afghan night.

Several overseas phone numbers offer an intimate chat with the ladies, or with some of their equally outgoing friends.

The heaviest fighting in five years has slowed reconstruction to a crawl in the deserts and oases of Kandahar, where the strict Taleban movement began in 1994, but pornography, opium and illegal alcohol are flourishing, officials say.

At least one satellite operator offers foreign channels such as eurotictv, allsex, 247Sex and transex, along with the God Channel and the Church, Miracle and Hope channels. In a country where converting to Christianity from Islam carries the death penalty, the Christian channels are just as offensive to some as the pornography, although not as popular.

"Pornography is a problem," admits new provincial police chief General Asmatullah Alizai. "According to our Islamic rules and beliefs, people cannot accept this kind of thing. I don't want people to see this kind of film."

Gen Alizai believes pornography, drugs and alcohol, especially in a traditionalist city such as Kandahar, underline the need for president Hamid Karzai's plan to re-establish the Taleban's department for the prevention of vice and the promotion of virtue, better known as the religious police.

"We should use any means possible," he says.

Under the Taleban's rule from 1996 to 2001, when its hardline Islamist government was ousted by a US-led coalition, music and film were banned. All women in Afghanistan wear a headscarf or an all-covering burqa and they can be shunned by their community for simply appearing on TV, even with their head covered.

Porn arrived in Kandahar as soon as the Taleban left, but was generally confined to the back rooms of teahouses. Now, it is increasingly there for anyone with the right satellite subscription or a couple of dollars for a video compact disc. So far, only limited attempts have been made to block some providers.

Explicit VCDs smuggled mainly from Pakistan but also from India are on sale on the streets for a few dollars each, but the vendors are secretive and wary. Sellers at the crowded VCD and CD market don't like to discuss the trade.

"They come from Pakistan," says Farid Achmad, firmly insisting that almost all his wares go on to neighbouring Iran to the west. "They are banned. The government would not let you sell anything like this," he says uncomfortably.

Porn's growing popularity and availability comes as the Taleban re-exerts its influence across the country, especially in Kandahar and other southern provinces.

More people are turning to the insurgents, partly out of frustration at the lack of jobs and a non-drugs economy, partly for money and partly because in some areas the Taleban imposes a rough order where the government cannot - complete with their own courts. The Islamist hardliners are also trying to reimpose some of their old strictures, burning schools that admit girls and executing their teachers in front of students.

Rona Trena, 34, the head of Kandahar's provincial women's affairs department, says pornography is a problem, but one that is largely confined to a small number of young men.

"It's not a good habit to have," she says.

"But it's in the shops and some of these young men are watching it. Seeing women like this is not normal."