An Afghan female mountaineering team risked it all for their dreams. Now they're stuck.
The frantic pings emanating from my phone are often accompanied by a single, pleading question: “When are we leaving?” The voice mails and texts are from a team of Afghan female mountaineers, whose desperation grows with every plane taking off from Kabul airport.
That these young women, who work for a U.S. nongovernmental organization called Ascend, are panicking is a sign of how things have deteriorated. They are no strangers to mortal risk, and for years defied a misogynistic society that frowned on female sports, especially ones as foreign to Afghans as recreational climbing. When they weren’t tackling the tough summits of the Hindu Kush, they trained on rock-climbing walls and yoga mats in Kabul and volunteered at schools and art centers. One team member, who is a gifted visual artist, even organized a rare neighborhood cleanup event in the Afghan capital.
These days, she and the other climbers stay indoors, texting, crying and praying.
Before 2001, when the Taliban was in charge, Kabul’s main stadium was less known for sporting events than for executions and stonings. There were some men’s sports, but women, who couldn’t leave their homes without a male guardian, had no athletic opportunities. Taliban leaders claim that, this time, women will be allowed to go to school and work within their definition of Islamic guidelines. But women and girls are already being banned from these activities in some Afghan provinces, and female athletes who spent two decades fighting for legitimacy in the post-Taliban era are terrified.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/19/an-afghan-female-mountaineering-team-risked-it-all-their-dreams-now-theyre-stuck/
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