The Afghan woman who plays basketball despite the Taliban's ban

Special correspondent in KabulHer home is on an unpaved street in Kabul, where cars have difficulty passing and where, logically, it is impossible to go by wheelchair. That is why Fauzia Emadi moves around with two wooden crutches. She is barely 1.40 meters tall, because her legs are as if shrunk, arched. She cannot move them. Her arms are also thinner than normal and it is impressive to see her hands: her fingers are deformed as if she were an elderly woman with arthritis, even though she is only 31 years old. According to her, all her joints hurt.

In fact, it is surprising that, under these conditions, this woman can move around on her own. It is also striking that she goes out on the street without a mask to cover her face, a scarf that does not show any of her hair, or a long, black tunic that hides her body shape, as most Afghan women do in Kabul since the Taliban regained power five years ago, and ordered women to cover themselves from head to toe. All this says a lot about her: she seems like a courageous woman.

"Since I was nine years old, I've had chronic rheumatism – she explains–. When my mother died, I started feeling unwell, but, because we were poor, they couldn't take me to the doctor". Thus, her bones gradually became deformed and increasingly stiff, until a point came when she could no longer walk. Her family then lived in a remote rural area of the Badakhshan province, in northern Afghanistan, where it was difficult to get help. Later they moved to Kabul, in the hope of finding a cure there.

At the orthopedic center of an NGO in the Afghan capital, they offered her physiotherapy, a wheelchair, a small monthly financial aid, and home-based classes so she could complete her secondary education. But what fulfills her the most is that every Monday she plays wheelchair basketball there, despite the ban imposed by the Taliban on women in Afghanistan participating in sports. In fact, the few women's gyms that existed in the city were closed, and the female athletes who were part of the national team were expelled. Those who could, fled the country seeking an alternative.

“Men can participate in international competitions,” complains Fauzia, referring to the men's wheelchair basketball teams that also train at the NGO's facilities, and with whom the Taliban have no problem traveling abroad to compete. They, on the other hand, are prohibited from doing so. One could say that the Taliban are already doing them a favor by letting them play sports. They tolerate it because the NGO presents the training sessions as "therapeutic basketball" sessions. In other words, as if they were part of the treatment. The radical regime only allows women to play sports by medical prescription.

"On one occasion, the Taliban's morality police reprimanded me for not covering my face, nor wearing my hijab properly. I replied: come on, leave me alone", Fauzia assures, saying she sent them away without thinking twice, because she was so extremely exhausted from walking with crutches, that it was the first thing that came to her mind. The Taliban then realized she had a disability and didn't bother her anymore.

Criticism and mockery

On the other hand, Fauzia assures that ordinary people do bother her every time she goes out on the street: they make fun of her, criticize her or whisper when they see her. "They think that, because I have a disability, I should stay locked up at home. But I want to study and have a job," she states.

Fauzia currently lives with her sister, a 28-year-old woman who is nine months pregnant, and she has a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. The house is also home to her sister's mother-in-law and sister-in-law, and another family with whom they share the rent expenses. Her husband, however, is rarely there because he spends long periods in northern Afghanistan working in a mine.

It is a humble house, with a carpeted floor and dirty, peeling walls, where the only luxuries are a small flat-screen television hanging on the wall, a fan, a washing machine, and an electric wheelchair that the Rupani Foundation has just gifted to Fauzia. It is noticeable that it is completely new. "The Rupani Foundation used to reward students with the best grades with a computer. I asked them to give me a wheelchair instead of a computer," explains the woman, who laments that the one the NGO gave her was stolen, one day when she left it parked on the street, in front of a relative's house. In Afghanistan, neither houses, nor streets, nor absolutely anything is adapted for people who use wheelchairs.

Despite everything, Fauzia goes every day with her new electric wheelchair to computer classes at the Rupani Foundation. It takes her half an hour to get there. She says she would love to study abroad, train, and be someone. She also hopes that outside her country she could find a cure for her illness. In Afghanistan, she laments, they can no longer do anything more for her. This is corroborated by a certificate issued by a prestigious medical center in Kabul: there is no treatment in the country. Traveling abroad, however, is not so easy. Pakistan, India, and Iran were common destinations for Afghans who needed surgery or specialized treatment. Since the Taliban came to power, however, these countries have closed their borders and grant visas sparingly. Fauzia, however, does not lose hope: “I hope that someone who reads my story will want to help me in some way,” she sighs.