Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
Apprehending they may not be allowed to play the female players of the Afghanistan’s junior national soccer team crossed border and entered Pakistan, reports said.
The team had spent the past month in hiding amid fears of a crackdown on women’s rights by the Taliban that took over the country after US forces left the land in August. The adult team members flew out of Kabul last month but the youth team were reportedly left stranded as they lacked passports and other documents.
Women had earlier too faced similar situation when there was Taliban rule. Females were barred from participating in sports during previous Taliban power between 1996 and 2001.
Officials said the group of players, about 115 in all, will travel from Peshawar to the eastern city of Lahore, where they will be housed at the Pakistani Football Federation’s headquarters. Players had reportedly written to the Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan asking permission to urgently enter the country.
The letter claimed that the girls were at risk of grave threats from the Taliban that has reportedly banned all activities done by females outside their home in the country and even banned classrooms with a mixed seating arrangement for boys and girls.
Players were earlier warned by the national team’s former captain, Khalida Popal, to delete pictures of themselves playing on social media and to burn their kits to protect themselves from potential reprisals from the new regime.
Last week the deputy head of the Taliban’s cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, cast doubt over the future of women’s sport in the country when he said it was considered neither appropriate nor necessary in response to a question about the fate of the women’s cricket team.
“In cricket, they might face a situation where their face and body will not be covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen like this”, Wasiq had stated.
Country’s biggest pop singer Aryana Sayeed and the famed film director Sahraa Karimi both left during the evacuation last month while female journalists too had to leave the land.
