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PARIS: Zakia Khudadadi has spent most of her life breaking through the glass ceiling. Or rather, hitting them with colleagues.
The Taekwondo Paralympian made history in Tokyo in 2021, becoming the first Afghan woman to compete in an international sporting event since the Taliban retook their country after US and NATO forces withdrew after the war. 20 years old.
Initially barred from competing after the rise of the Taliban, he was transferred to Afghanistan and allowed to compete for his country after appeals from the international community.
At the 2024 Paralympics, part of the wider Olympic competition in Paris, Khudadadi said she was competing on behalf of her country's women whose rights have been gradually stripped away over the past three years.
“It's difficult for me because I want to compete under the flag of my country,” he said. But “life is forbidden for all girls and women in Afghanistan. It's over. Today, I am here to win a medal in Paris for them. I want to show strength to all women and girls in Afghanistan.”
Khudadadi is competing for the Refugee Paralympic Team, while other athletes, such as Olympic runner Kimia Yousofi, are seeking medals under the Afghan flag. Yousofi's parents fled during the previous Taliban regime and she was born and raised in neighboring Iran. She said she wanted to represent her country, flaws and all, and wanted to be “the voice of Afghan girls.”
For Khudadadi, she started practicing Taekwondo at the age of 11, training secretly in a gym in her hometown of Herāt because there were no other opportunities for women to exercise. -very safe. Despite the closed culture around him, Khudadadi says his family is open and will push him to be active.
The disability, he said, added to his struggles in competing in Afghanistan.
Despite having “one of the largest populations of disabled people in the world” due to conflict, people with disabilities are often shunned by Afghan society, according to Human Rights Watch. Women often suffer from inequality.
Born without one arm, Khudadadi said he spent his life hiding his arm. It wasn't until he started competing that he changed.
“Before I started in sports, I used to defend myself with my arms. But little by little… I started to show my arms, but only in the club. Only during the competition,” he said.
When she started competing, she says she felt the stigma begin to melt away. Taekwondo has once again become a path to freedom, and it gained attention in 2016 when it won its first international medal.
That all changed five years later, when the Taliban rose to power after the Biden administration left Afghanistan. While preparing for Tokyo, Khudadadi was trapped in the country's capital, Kabul.
The International Paralympic Committee initially issued a statement saying the Afghan team would not participate in the 2021 Games “due to the current situation in the country.” But in a bid to compete, Khudadadi released a video pleading with the international community for help.
“Please, I am asking all of you, from women around the world, women's organizations, from all government organizations, to not allow the rights of women citizens of Afghanistan to Paralympic events to be taken away so easily,” he said. “I don't want my fight to be in vain.”
He moved to Tokyo in 2021 to compete, leaving behind his family.
In doing so, she became the first Afghan woman Paralympian in two decades. In 2023, he won gold at the European Para Championships.
After fleeing Afghanistan, he settled in Paris, but he says he is thirsty for the mix of cultures that colors his country and the openness of people walking the streets of Kabul.
“I hope that one day we will be able to return to Afghanistan, to Kabul, to live together in freedom and peace,” he said.
Thousands of miles away in Khudadadi's hometown of Herat, Shah Mohammad, 38, was among the supporters of Khudadadi and other Afghan female athletes in Paris.
“We are happy for the Afghan women who went to the Olympics, but my wish is that the women from inside Afghanistan can participate in the Games and be the voice of women from the country one day,” Mohammad said.
That day will probably not be long.
The Taliban have cut women out of most public life and barred girls from studying beyond the sixth grade under strict measures they have imposed since 2021 despite promising more moderate rules in the first. As recently as January, the United Nations said the Taliban are now restricting Afghan women's access to work, travel and health care if they are single or without guardians.
Not only did they ban sports for women and girls, they terrorized and persecuted those who had played in the past.
But even before the Taliban returned to power, women's sports were opposed by many in the country's deeply conservative society, seen as a violation of modesty. women and their role in society.
However, the previous Western-backed government had programs to encourage women's sports and school clubs, leagues and national teams.
For Khudadadi, the IOC's refugee team helped him and other athletes who fled their country continue their careers. The Paralympian — with eyes set on a gold medal in Paris — has been training for hours with deep frustration as he watches his country's women's progress, and Afghanistan fall once again on the world stage.
One question runs through Khudadadi's mind: “Why has the world forgotten Afghan women?”
However, for others like Mohammad Amin Sharifi, 43, watching Khudadadi and other Afghan Olympians in Paris, especially women, is a source of pride for people like her in Afghanistan.
“Right now, we need the voice of Afghan women to be raised in every way and the Olympics is the best place to do that,” said Sharifi from Kabul. “We are happy and proud of the women who represent the Afghan people.”