In 2003, the Taliban had been removed from power in Afghanistan for two years, but their influence and ideology still ran deeply through society. “Whores,” the man hissed. The men called out insults to our families for letting us play football, snatching up our bags and tipping them upside down, sending schoolbooks flying into the air and tumbling to the ground.
They kicked our goalposts made of stones disdainfully away and painstakingly scuffed our pitch lines into obscurity in the dust. The ringleader grabbed a scarf that lay on the floor and shoved it hard into the face of one of the players, sending her stumbling backwards. Then, silent and seething, somehow more terrifying than he was before, he strode into the centre of the yard, a mixture of rage and pleasure in his expression.
Revealing a large knife that he held up in front of us dramatically, he proceeded to stab into our football: once, twice, a third time. Then he threw it to the ground. It was a performance, like a magician putting on a show, but it was also a very real threat.
To be a young woman in Afghanistan is to grow up with violence. To learn not to fight back. To fight back is to risk being killed.
If you are beaten it’s because you were at fault, you must have done something wrong. There were 20 of us in the yard that day, far more of us than of them, but there was nothing we could do, because we knew the consequences. Our crime? Kicking a ball, playing sport, having fun.
We watched as the object t.
