Mobarez, a former refugee playing in Aalborg, coaches and spreads the word of the women’s game at a camp in Denmark
In many countries women who play football have to battle against negative attitudes but in arguably one of the most oppressive nations for women, still engulfed in war, where the Taliban no longer rule but their legacy and presence run deep, football can be life or death. Even so, in Afghanistan, where being seen in public without a man is taboo, a group of women are rebelling through their love of the game.
Shabnam Mobarez is the captain of the Afghanistan women’s team. An Afghan refugee who moved to Denmark with her family three years after her father had fled there to escape war, Mobarez has spent time in the country of her birth to find out more about the struggles of her team-mates. “I was in Afghanistan two months ago before our training camp in Jordan,” she says. “I went to see how hard it is for Afghan players, who live in Afghanistan, to get to training and just live like a regular player. The situation was very bad in my opinion, very sad. Going to practice is such a huge challenge because they face so many things on the way.
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