Bacha posh

Bacha posh (Pashto: باشا بوش, lit. 'dressed up as a boy', Dari: بچه‌ پوشی) is a practice in Afghanistan in which some families will pick a daughter to live and behave as a boy. This enables the child to behave more freely: attending school, escorting her sisters in public, and working. The practice is more common among families with a large number of daughters, particularly if there are no sons. Girls raised bacha posh typically resume living as a girl around the time they hit puberty, as it becomes more difficult for them to pass as a boy. Families may choose to raise a daughter bacha posh so that she can earn an income, particularly in the absence of male relatives, to enable her mother and sisters greater freedom of movement, or due to preference for a son.