Afghanistan: Women’s youth soccer team escapes to Pakistan

Female players from Afghanistan’s junior national soccer team have crossed the border into Pakistan.

The girls had spent the past month in hiding amid fears of a crackdown on women’s rights by the Taliban.

The adult side flew out of Kabul last month but the youth team were reportedly left stranded as they lacked passports and other documentation.

32 players and their families won visas after lobbying of the government by charity “Football for Peace”.

Officials said the group, totalling 115 people, will travel from Peshawar to the eastern city of Lahore, where they will be housed at the Pakistani Football Federation’s headquarters.

The Independent recently revealed that the players had written to the Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan to ask for permission to urgently enter the country.

The letter claimed that the girls were at risk of “grave threats” from the Taliban.

After the fall of Kabul players were 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 said.

“It is the media era, and there will be photos and videos, and then people watch it. Islam and the Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] do not allow women to play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed.”

Women were barred from participating in sports during the Taliban’s last spell in power from 1996-2001.

Their departure is part of a wider exodus of Afghan sports and cultural stars amid fears of a crackdown on women’s rights following the takeover of the country by the Taliban last month.

As well as the departure of the women’s football teams, the country’s biggest pop singer Aryana Sayeed and the famed film director Sahraa Karimi both left during the evacuation last month.

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