Women’s Sport in Afghanistan: Another Right Denied, Another Resistance

It’s rare to hear about Afghanistan without mentioning Afghan women. They’re implicated, on the one hand, by the Taliban’s ferocious patriarchal ideology, which erases them from social life with a single stroke of an eraser, and, on the other, by Western propaganda, entirely instrumental in legitimizing the 2001 military intervention in the country, which supposedly had among its goals the liberation of women from Taliban subjugation.

Afghan women are almost always spoken of out of compassion, dismissively and carelessly cast into a category we might call “poor things.” This consideration, however, carries the full force of resignation, as if their oppression were ultimately written into their destiny.

However, the resistance women exert serves as a warning to us: resignation leads to nothing good; rather, it leaves an empty space that the Taliban and others will know how to fill. Afghan women’s struggle to change their country continues, laboriously and slowly, of course, but relentlessly.

This is demonstrated by the many experiences of clandestinity that Afghan women endure to educate girls and young women, so that they do not give up on their dreams and gain an awareness of their condition and the courage to revolutionize history.

Since the Taliban returned to power on August 15, 2021, they have enacted more than one hundred measures affecting women. Minky Worden, Director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch, wrote in a February 3, 2025, letter to the International Cricket Committee (ICC) that “since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed a growing list of rules and policies on women and girls, banning them from attending secondary schools and universities, and severely restricting access to employment, freedom of expression, and movement, as well as banning sports and other outdoor activities.”

In fact, less than a month had passed since the Taliban took office when, on September 8, 2021, the Vice Chairman of the Taliban’s Cultural Commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, declared that sports were unnecessary for women. When pressed on the issue of cricket, a sport that at the international level must abide by rules that provide equal rights and opportunities for both sexes, requiring each national federation to have both a men’s and women’s national team in order to be a member of the international federation, Ahmadullah Wasiq responded that girls “could find themselves in a situation where their faces and bodies are not covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen in this way. This is the age of the media, and there would be photos and videos that could be seen by people. Islam and the Islamic Emirate (Afghanistan) do not allow women to play cricket or participate in any sport that exposes them.”

From that moment on, female athletes of all sports and their families began to get rid of anything that could constitute proof of their sporting activity. Photos depicting sporting moments were torn down and deleted from social media, while medals, uniforms, and equipment were taken from homes. No one dared to talk about women’s sports outside their homes.

Some athletes, known for being part of the national team, had gone into hiding, hoping and waiting to leave the country and escape the persecution that would befall them.

The national cricket team had made headlines, having been helped to escape to Australia by the initiative of three Australian women, one of them a former national cricketer, Mel Jones, as well as those from the national soccer and volleyball teams who had gone into hiding, hoping and waiting to escape the country.

Many of these athletes managed to escape and resume training on other fields and in other gyms, often having to leave their entire families behind in Afghanistan.

It must be said, however, that during the occupation, things were not all rosy, as the government did not always allow the women’s national teams to compete abroad, citing threats from the Taliban as the reason for this decision. But there was a tendency among the country’s politicians to allow sports to continue because, thanks to the countless NGOs present in the country investing in sports projects, foreign money was attractive.

During last year’s Paris Olympic Games, former Afghan judoka Friba Rezayee, who had participated in the 2004 Olympics, spoke out against the participation of the Afghan national team, despite having an equal representation for both sexes, three men and three women, the latter however not recognized by the Afghan government. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) admitted the team but denied invitations to Afghanistan’s institutional representatives.

According to Rezayee, allowing his country to be represented with the flag was a mistake because, albeit unintentionally, it ended up granting legitimacy to “a regime that punishes women for participating in sports.” The former judoka offered an alternative: the participation of Afghan athletes in the Refugees Team, composed exclusively of female and male refugees (at the Paris Olympics, three Afghan athletes and one female Afghan athlete were members of the Refugees Team).

Denying recognition of the Taliban government is at the heart of Afghan women activists’ battle because it is a necessary step in attempting to dismantle the system of “gender apartheid” built by the Taliban, as defined by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

But sport is not just about competition; it is much more. Its ban has had significant repercussions on women’s social and personal lives. Socialization in Afghan society, which remained profoundly patriarchal even during the occupation, was also possible through attending sports centers where, in addition to trying to get back in shape after numerous pregnancies (more than five children per woman), women sought physical and psychological well-being.

The punishment inflicted on women for being women has not definitively suppressed their desire for redemption, and although they know they face very serious risks, some of them continue to practice sports clandestinely today. However, controls by the authorities are constant. In February 2023, the Taliban closed another sports center, a women’s karate club that had remained open despite the ban in Farah province.

The right to sport, given its weight and importance, does not even require recognition, although international treaties explicitly state this. It is inalienable and belongs to every individual as a human being. It cannot be denied.

Political actions must, however, create the conditions for this right to be exercised. Therefore, the International Cricket Committee’s decision to require national federations to have both a men’s and women’s team to participate in international competitions should serve as an example for all other international sports federations. But that’s not enough; those federations that do not comply with the provision must be removed from the committees. This is what Afghan women cricketers in exile have long been demanding of the ICC, supported in this fight by Human Rights Watch, because to this day, the Afghan men’s cricket team remains a member of the International Committee despite the Afghan government’s refusal to reconstitute the women’s team.

In the grueling wait for international sports policy to do its part to support Afghan women in the fight to realize women’s fundamental right to participate in sport, thousands of girls, young women, and women in Afghanistan continue to suffocate under the weight of bans and the total control of their lives. They are forced to decide whether to give up sport to avoid harsh punishment or, conversely, practice it clandestinely and risk paying a heavy price.