(ANALYSIS) Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, women and girls have been banned from playing sports or participating in any form of physical activity. Former female athletes, who were well known throughout the country and their communities, faced persecution and severe punishments.

Because of this persecution, they were forced to flee their country.

Their families are also directly affected. While some of these women and girls were able to flee the country, female athletes still in Afghanistan are living in hiding and in constant fear. Without women able to meaningfully join and engage in all aspects of their lives, including sports, they will remain second-class citizens.

However, Afghan women have been defying the Taliban and competed at the 2024 Olympics and 2024 Paralympics, while flying the flag of the Refugee Olympic and Paralympic teams.

Among them is Zakia Khudadadi. Zakia belongs to the Hazara ethnic group in Afghanistan — a numeric minority group in the country that is subjected to discrimination and persecution at the hands of the Taliban and the Islamic State group’s Afghan affiliate. After the Taliban takeover in August 2021, France helped Zakia to escape Afghanistan and participate in the Tokyo Games.

Zakia was at particular risk in Afghanistan as a female athlete and as a member of the Hazara community. After taking over power in Afghanistan, the Taliban banned women from participating in sports.

Also, as the Taliban were taking over, attacks against the Hazara community increased significantly. Hazara places of worship, schools and other predominately Hazara places were being attacked again and again, sending waves of fear across the communities.

Zakia became the second female athlete to represent Afghanistan in any sport at the Paralympic Games when she competed in Tokyo. Zakia's participation in Tokyo also made her the first athlete of either gender to represent Afghanistan in taekwondo at the Paralympic Games. After fleeing the country in 2021, she started training alongside French athletes and French coach Haby Niare.

While in Tokyo, Zakia participated as part of the Afghanistan team, she is now competing as part of the Refugee Paralympic Team at the 2024 games in Paris. As she recalls, “My life has been a journey filled with ups and downs. I faced death threats and even contemplated suicide.

What set me apart was my disability. When I looked in the mirror, I knew I was missing a hand. But I pictured in my head having an iron hand instead that made me impossible to stop. In that way, my disability has given me extra strength. It is a great honor because I am representing millions of refugees who have disabilities in these Games, and I will participate with immense pride.

I want to send them a message and show them we are examples of peace, acceptance, courage, friendship and equality. Hopefully, we can inspire them and encourage them to follow their dreams.”

Zakia won the bronze medal on Aug. 29, becoming the first Paralympic athlete to medal in the history of the refugee delegation.

While Afghan women cannot participate in sports, several Afghan women have been participating in the 2024 games — as part of the Refugee team but also as part of the Afghanistan team. This was thanks to the positive intervention of the International Olympic Committee.

In June 2024, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Afghanistan would field a gender-equal team of three men and three women. Among them was Olympic sprinter Kimia Yousofi. Yousofi’s parents fled during the Taliban’s previous rule, and she was born and raised in neighboring Iran.

She wanted to represent her country and “be the voice of Afghan girls.” While she was able to do that, the Taliban said that they did not recognize Yousofi nor her female teammates. Atal Mashwani, the spokesman of the Taliban government's sports directorate, suggested that only three athletes were representing Afghanistan — namely three male athletes.

Other Afghan women representing the Refugee team during the 2024 Olympics included Manizha Talash. Talash took part in the breakdancing competition. During her performance, she displayed a cape with the slogan “Free Afghan Women.” She was disqualified from the competition for making a “political protest.”

Afghan women have shown incredible strength and determination during the 2024 games, qualities that we all would like to see from the international community when addressing the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan.

On Aug. 9, United Nations experts, including U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett, called for decisive action from national and international sports bodies against the Taliban’s ban on women and girls in Afghanistan participating in all sports. As he emphasized, “For nearly three years, the Taliban has barred women and girls in Afghanistan from participating in all sports, an unacceptable abrogation of their rights, which no other country imposes.

This ban is part of the Taliban’s institutionalized system of sex and gender discrimination and oppression, which may amount to crimes against humanity. ... [Afghan women’s participation in Paris Games] stands against the Taliban’s systematic oppression and exclusion of women and girls.” As the U.N. reminded, sports bodies have human rights responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and also commitments under the Olympic Charter.

Afghan women athletes participating in Paris give hope to Afghan women and girls in Afghanistan and abroad — hope that Afghan women and girls will be able to enjoy their rights and freedoms yet again.

This piece was republished from Forbes with permission.

Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response. She’s authored the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 UN reports. She works on the topic of genocide and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities around the world. She is on X @EwelinaUO.