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PARIS: Zakia Khudadadi has spent most of her life breaking glass ceilings. Or rather, break them with helper.
The Taekwondo Paralympian made history in Tokyo 2021, becoming the first Afghan woman to compete in an international sporting event since the Taliban regained control of her country as US and NATO troops withdrew after 20 years of war.
Initially barred from competing after the rise of the Taliban, she was later evacuated from Afghanistan and allowed to compete for her country at the request of the international community.
At the 2024 Paralympics, part of the wider Paris Olympics, Khudadadi said she was competing on behalf of women in her country who had been gradually disenfranchised over the past three years.
“It is difficult for me because I would like to compete under the flag of my country,” she said. But “life for all girls and women in Afghanistan is forbidden. It's end. Today I am here to win a medal for them in Paris. I want to show strength to all the women and girls in Afghanistan.”
Khudadadi competes for the refugee Paralympic team, while other athletes aim for medals under the Afghan flag, such as Olympic sprinter Kimia Yousofi. Yousofi's parents fled during the previous Taliban rule and she was born and raised in neighboring Iran. She said she wanted to represent her country, flaws and all, and wanted to “be the voice of Afghan girls.”
For Khudadadi, she started practicing taekwondo at the age of 11, training secretly in a gym in her hometown of Herāt because there were simply no other opportunities for women to do the sport safely. Despite the closed-off culture around her, Khudadadi said her family is open-minded and will push her to be active.
Her fight for the race in Afghanistan, she said, was complicated by her disability.
Despite having “one of the largest per capita populations of people with disabilities in the world” due to the conflict, people with disabilities are often shunned and blocked in Afghan society, according to Human Right Watch. Women are often disproportionately affected.
Khudadadi, who was born without one forearm, said she hid her arm all her life. It wasn't until she started competing that things started to change.
“Before I started the sport, I protected myself a lot with my arm. But little by little… I started to show my arm, but only in the club. Only when racing,” she said.
When she started competing, she said she felt the stigma begin to melt away. Taekwondo once again became her path to freedom and gained attention in 2016 when she won her first international medal.
That all changed five years later, when the Taliban rose to power in a dramatic fashion following the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan. During the preparations for Tokyo, Khudadadi was imprisoned in the country's capital, Kabul.
The International Paralympic Committee initially issued a statement that the Afghan team would not participate in the 2021 Games “due to the serious situation in the country”. But in a bid to compete, Khudadadi released a video pleading for help from the international community.
“Please, I urge all of you, from women around the world, from women's protection institutions, from all government organizations, not to let the rights of an Afghan citizen in the Paralympic movement be taken away so easily.” she said. “I don't want my fight to be in vain.”
In 2021, she was evacuated to Tokyo to compete, leaving her family behind.
This made her the first female Paralympian from Afghanistan in almost two decades. In 2023, she won gold at the European Para Championships.
She settled in Paris after fleeing Afghanistan, but said she yearns for the mix of cultures that portrays her country and the openness of the people who roam the busy streets of Kabul.
“I hope that one day I can return to Afghanistan, to Kabul, to live a life of freedom and peace together,” she said.
Thousands of kilometers away in Khudadadi's hometown of Herat, 38-year-old Shah Mohammad supported Khudadadi and other Afghan female athletes in Paris.
“We are happy for the Afghan women who participated in the Olympics, but my wish is that one day the women of Afghanistan can participate in the games and be the voice of the women of the country,” Mohammad said.
That day is unlikely anytime soon.
The Taliban have excluded women from much of public life and barred girls from studying beyond the sixth grade as part of tough measures it introduced from 2021, despite initially promising a more moderate government. Just in January, the United Nations reported that the Taliban are now restricting Afghan women's access to work, travel and health care unless they are married or have a male guardian.
Not only did they ban sports for women and girls, they intimidated and harassed those who once played.
But even before the Taliban returned to power, women's sports were opposed by many in the country's deeply conservative society, seen as a violation of women's modesty and their role in society.
Yet the previous Western-backed government had programs to support women's sports and school clubs, leagues and national teams.
Khudadadi's IOC refugee team helped her and other athletes who fled their countries continue their careers. The Paralympian has been training long hours – with her eyes on a gold medal in Paris – in deep frustration as she watches her country's strides for women erode and Afghanistan once again slips out of the global spotlight.
One question simmers in Khudadadi's mind: “Why has the world forgotten Afghan women?”
Still, for others like Mohammad Amin Sharifi, 43, watching Khudadadi and other Afghan Olympians in Paris, especially the women, was a point of pride for people like him in Afghanistan.
“Right now we need the voice of Afghan women to be raised in any way possible, and the Olympics is the best place for that,” said Sharifi from Kabul. “We are happy and proud of the women representing the Afghan people.”