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Being a teenage girl can be difficult. Being a teenage girl in Afghanistan, even more so.
But after the recent successes of the Afghan national football team on the world stage,
a new generation of teenage girls in Kabul is kicking against tradition and paving the
way for the future. Through this sport we can show the whole world
that the country is united and together succeed in the international football championships.
Whenever I watch the national players, whether they are male or female, it makes me very
happy and shows that our country has developed and can participate in international matches.
The Afghanistan's women's national football team was formed in 2007 by the country's National
Olympic Committee. This was a bold step forward in a culture where, by western standards,
women's rights lag behind. But despite this backdrop, these city girls want to show people
how things can be. Fanoos Basir was brought up in a refugee camp
in Pakistan. Her love of football led to her campaigning to get other girls in the camp
playing football too. Football is in my blood.
When I was at school, there was no football team for the girls, so I used to play with
the boys and gradually realised that girls could play too. So I went to my friends' houses
and persuaded their parents to let them play. And girls like Fanoos and her teammates are
clearly having an impact. Girls make up 50 per cent of society so if
boys can play football, girls can too. The road so far, however, has not always been
easy. When a girl leaves her home for football,
men shout insults in the street. They say that football is not a girls' game and to
go home to do housework. But football in Afghanistan is not just about
changing mindsets. It's also about national pride.
We try our best when we play abroad so that we can bring victory home to Afghanistan and
make people proud of us. Whether or not their dreams will be realised,
football for girls like Fanoos, Sorjas and Nilab is about something much deeper.
My message is to all those women who are not allowed to leave their homes, and to those
parents who hold their children back, and to the brothers who don't let their sisters
do sport, is to keep fighting until they win.