Sport, political struggle for women

To close the Day of Humanity 2023, on Sunday, September 17, a final debate was held at the Agora on the fight of women for the right to practice sports and the numerous projects that have yet to be realized in order to achieve this.

Exiled Afghan handball players Fardina Samadi, Sohaila Karimi, Sonan Sadat and Naira Balkhi recalled the difficulties of playing sports in their country, along with Shoukria Haidar, president of the Negar association, a former Afghan athlete, who helps women in Afghanistan. They spoke with Marie-George Buffet, former PCF Minister of Youth and Sports, and Emmanuelle Bonnet Oulaldj, co-president of the FSGT.

What obstacles did you encounter in playing sports as a handball national team member in Afghanistan?

Fardina Samadi: In Afghanistan, sport is considered a strange thing and is not popular. We women have no right to education and even less to sports. Only 5% of Afghan women manage to exercise. The state’s great fear is that women create the national team. The state is afraid of women, because if they know their rights, they will defend them. Since we arrived in France, we can start playing sports again and our hope and our determination are even stronger.

What shines through this handball national team are the sisterly bonds that you made to hold on, to continue playing sports, but also to escape after the arrival of the Taliban…

Sohaila Karimi: We tried to create a national handball team, a unique group, so that it doesn’t stay in just one city, but we encountered a lot of problems. Families no longer allow young people to play sports… Culture and sports are not thought about in Afghanistan. After the arrival of the Taliban, the situation further worsened. We could not leave the house without male permission; it was very difficult to play sports without society’s permission.

Marie-George Buffet, you actively participated in the arrival of these women. Can you describe to us how the huge network of solidarity with Afghan women is woven through sports?

Marie-Georges Buffet: First, we must salute the courage of these women, because they made the decision to leave the country they love. They still have their loved ones there and fear retribution for their family. What they did was for the freedom of women, to say loud and clear that a woman has the right to use her body, to play sports in a public place. The solidarity was established thanks to someone in the room, the diplomatic adviser – I won’t say his name – and the diplomatic adviser in Pakistan. The French Handball Federation also showed solidarity by welcoming these women. And then, together with the Negar association and our Women’s association, we took over here and there.

Support was also provided by the town halls – I mean Malakoff (Hauts-de-Seine), Mitry-Mory and La Courneuve (Seine-Saint-Denis), and many others who agreed to accept these women so that they could, sometimes from their spouse, rebuild and live freely. Their fight gives us the courage and desire to fight in France as well, because fighting for women to use their bodies in Afghanistan means also leading that fight in Europe, where, as we clearly see, real women are in decline. Today in France, girls cannot play the sport of their choice, and sometimes they cannot play sport at all. It is a universal struggle.

Shoukria Haidar, you lived through a different era, a very different one in terms of access to sports for women. Tell us.

Shoukria Haidar: Today I am 65 years old, but I played sports all my childhood in Afghanistan. When I was little, young college athletes pushed us to dream. From the age of 12-13 I was a member of the high school basketball team. Afterwards I played table tennis, then a little badminton. Then I enrolled in two years of professional studies in physical education and joined the Olympic Committee as a technical member. I organized national level competitions in Afghanistan. And as part of my work, I founded the first national table tennis team in Afghanistan. With the advent of the Soviet Union, the communist government opened all doors to sports and education for girls, and opened up rights for women. It was quite.

What symbolism is hidden behind the obstacles that are placed on women in their desire to access the practice?

Emmanuelle Bonnet Oulaldj: First, I would like to express my admiration for these women and say that I hope that their fight will be remembered, because the official history of sports forgets the fight of women for the right to play sports. I am thinking, for example, of Alice Milliat, whom no one knows. She opposed Baron Pierre de Coubertin, because athletics were forbidden to women. They had the right to show their aesthetics only in certain activities. Alice Milliat fought for years, organizing the Women’s Olympic Games at Pershing Stadium in 1919 and three other editions until, finally, women had rights and in 2024 as many female athletes as men competed in the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Marie-George Buffet: I would like to quote a sentence from Monsieur de Coubertin whose statues are almost everywhere, the one who is said to have created the modern Olympic Games… Monsieur de Coubertin said this: “ A women’s Olympics would be disreputable and incorrect. » We are not ten centuries ago, but in 1912. This idea that women should be ashamed of their bodies and that their bodies should only be used for reproduction or to please men, is what is implemented through this ban on women’s sports. I remind you that women’s sports are 16 times less represented in the media than men’s, and that even today in France we have only 39% of women members of our sports associations. So the fight is not over…

As co-president of the Sports and Gymnastics Federation of Labor (FSGT), Emmanuelle Bonnet Oulaldj, but also as an administrator of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF), what can you tell us about the evolution of mentality?

Emmanuelle Bonnet Oulaldj: In several mandates, women were ministers of sports. There is a female president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee – another – there was a female president of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee. It lasted two years. But there are only two women presidents of Olympic federations out of 36. On the other hand, half of the multi-sport federations are headed by women, which means that somewhere we don’t want to entrust women with serious matters. And for me it really calls into question the relationship with power and the way we govern.

There is a glass ceiling that is extremely difficult to break. Women really need to understand what this patriarchal society is and why they can’t reach the next level. In my opinion, there is still a lack of sisterhood. Finally, there is a word that is very difficult to use in sports between women and men, and that is equality. When we talk about women’s access to leadership positions, I would like us to talk about equality, because wanting to talk about diversity, women remain at odds. They are vice-presidents, general secretaries, but never presidents.

Ladies, you just arrived in France, how do you see your future here and will you continue to do sports?

Sonan Sadat: Now that I am in France, I feel very good. My journey was complicated. Before coming to France, I went to Iran and in Tehran I applied for a visa to come to France, but it was rejected. I was forced to return to Afghanistan and live in hiding. It was very difficult. Then we went to Pakistan for a visa and after eight months of waiting we got it. Now I’m here and I’m happy. I started playing handball again and train at Usma in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis).

Naira Balkhi: Now that we are in France, we feel good and can live in safety. We can go to work, we can study and therefore we can progress in our personal and professional lives. We are trying to find our place in France to allow other Afghan women to come.

Fardina Samadi: France helped us get out of Afghanistan, but many sports teachers remain stuck in Afghanistan. Thank you for supporting the young generation of Afghan women, but we would like France to help these older women to come out as well.

To conclude, how can we overcome this feeling of helplessness in the face of what Afghan women are experiencing and act to help them here in France?

Shoukria Haidar: We cannot move 40 million people from Afghanistan and bring them here. But we have to get them out of this ordeal. So, for this, our Negar association, women like Marie-George Buffet and all of you, we need to make a united action, to influence the United Nations and the States, to put pressure on Afghanistan. Then, we have to help the Afghan women who have arrived in France, so that they can study, learn French and find their place.

Finally, through my association, on a smaller scale, we specifically help women in Afghanistan, in the field of education, activists… We help them survive. They need you. Together, let’s prevent the recognition of the Taliban and help these women who are an opportunity for Afghanistan to stand on its feet tomorrow.