Saving Afghanistan’s Female Athletes

Amid all the chaos, sports organizations, non-profits, and world governments have been working together to evacuate Afghanistan’s female athletes.

(KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 29, 2010) Afghanistan’s national women’s football (soccer) team and a pickup team of women assigned to the International Security Assistance Force Headquarters in Kabul pose for photos during halftime of a friendly match Friday. The Afghan women controlled much of the game, but scored just once. That goal, which came in the first half, was enough for the win. (ResoluteSupportMedia)

Once upon a happier time, former Afghan national soccer team captain Khalida Popal told her teammates to, “to stand strong, to be bold, to be visible” as ambassadors of equal rights for women in Afghanistan.

After Kabul fell to the Taliban, Popal- who currently resides in Copenhagen- had a much different message for her teammates.

“Today I’m calling them and telling them, take down their names, remove their identities, take down their photos for their safety,” she told Reuters in an interview on August 18. “Even I’m telling them to burn down or get rid of your national team uniform.”

“And that is painful for me, for someone as an activist who stood up and did everything possible to achieve and earn that identity as a women’s national team player,” the former captain said. “To earn that badge on the chest, to have the right to play and represent our country, how much we were proud.”

“What we are seeing is a country collapsing,” she continued. “All the pride, happiness to be there to empower women and men of the country is like it was just wasted.”