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As the players of the Afghanistan Women’s National Team (AWNT), we stand with our sisters in Afghanistan who are subject daily to oppression at the hands of the Taliban’s system of gender apartheid. The world must not turn away and forget the experience of women and girls in Afghanistan, and we must not normalise the Taliban’s presence, our oppressor, in the international community. There must be no rest until the women of Afghanistan are free.
We are proud of being from Afghanistan, and whilst our exile from the country for our own safety forbids our return, we are proud to express our freedom and our solidarity with the women back in Afghanistan through football. As the National Team before the Taliban took control, we were proud to represent our country, sing our national anthem, and show the young girls of Afghanistan that anything is possible, and we want to continue this in exile, representing the AWNT on the world stage.
The Taliban’s total ban on women in public life has rendered sporting opportunity for Afghan women impossible, but the success of female Afghan representation at the Olympics has shown the world that it is possible for us to be proudly Afghan, and to compete representing the country we love at the same time.
We want to work with those in the international community who believe in Afghan women, who want us to be able to achieve and compete like our sisters around the world can, no longer held back by the Taliban whose ban on female sports now seems to extend beyond their borders.
We know there is a way to achieve female Afghan representation on the world stage and we are willing to work with those in positions of power to achieve it. We agree with the FIFA President when he declared that he wants to provide ‘access to girls and women to play sport in Afghanistan, and to support their representation on the national stage,’ but we cannot normalise the Taliban’s brutal gender apartheid that cruelly chased us from our home. A new future must be sought for Afghan women, one of opportunity, safety and hope, and we are proud to fight for it. Recognition is the way to do that.
Afghanistan Women's National Team in Exile