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How helping sportswomen in Afghanistan made Ali Baba a target for the Taliban
Under the Taliban, Afghanistan’s top female athletes have all but disappeared from global competition.
Published
Updated
By Elise Potaka
Source: SBS
Image: Bahara hoped to play volleyball at the highest levels. Credit: SBS Dateline. (This image has been digitally altered. SBS Dateline/Getty.)
Key Points
- Under the Taliban, Afghanistan’s top female athletes have all but disappeared from global competition.
- Under the new regime, women’s participation in sport has effectively been banned.
As a member of Afghanistan’s National Women’s Volleyball team, Bahara* hoped to compete at the highest levels.
But since the return of the Taliban, the 20-year-old's sporting dreams have been put on hold.
In the past year, Afghanistan’s top female athletes have all but disappeared from global competition.
Under the new regime, women’s participation in sport has effectively been banned. Less than a month after taking power, a high-level Taliban official told SBS that playing sport exposes women’s faces and bodies, and goes against Islamic values.
“The gymnasium where we played volleyball was closed. We were told that women do not have the right to go there and exercise,” says Bahara. “I have to exercise at home so that I can stay in shape.”
Like many, Bahara is now hoping to leave her home country. But, this isn’t easy.
Bahara has to play volleyball at home to keep her skills up.
It was then that he made the difficult decision to flee Afghanistan with his family. They tried multiple routes, multiple borders and eventually paid smugglers to take them to Pakistan via a perilous desert crossing.
At one point, they feared for their lives when they were held at gunpoint by a group of Islamic State loyalists.
Ali Baba is trying to help others escape Afghanistan like he did.
“They said they will kill all the males and send their women back... I thought we might never see each other again.” The family were only freed after agreeing to pay more money.
A new life
Ali Baba has now resettled in Australia, but he’s left behind friends and family and the progressive Afghanistan he was helping to build.
“We had struggled for 20 years, we had rebuilt our country and hoped that from now on we can freely live and work. But, when in just one night Kabul fell, all of our hopes were crushed.”
Ali Baba Faizal has now resettled in Australia.
“I am trying, and can only talk to people here and see if there is any organisation capable of helping them out,” he says.
From her home in Kabul, Bahara tells Ali Baba just how much she misses doing sport and being active.
“I remember those days, when we used to go mountain climbing, (or) at three in the morning we would wake up and go for a run,” she tells him. “Those were the best days of my life.”
*Not her real name.
