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PARIS: Zakia Khudadadi has spent most of her life breaking through glass ceilings. Or rather, knock them through with a sidekick.
The taekwondo paralympian made history in 2021 in Tokyo, becoming the first Afghan woman to compete in an international sporting event since the Taliban took back 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 following a plea from the international community.
In the 2024 Paralympics, part of the larger Olympic events in Paris, Khudadadi said she is competing on behalf of women in her country who have been gradually stripped of their rights over the past three years.
“It is difficult for me because I would like to compete under my country's flag,” she said. But “the life of all girls and women in Afghanistan is forbidden. It's over. Today I am here to win a medal in Paris for them. I want to show strength to all women and girls in Afghanistan.”
Khudadadi is competing for the Refugee Paralympic Team, while other athletes are seeking 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 began training taekwondo at 11, working out in secret at a gym in her hometown of Herāt because there were simply no other opportunities for women to safely practice the sport. Despite a closed culture around her, Khudadadi said her family was open and would push her to be active.
She said it was her disability that compounded her struggle to compete in Afghanistan.
Despite having “one of the largest per capita populations of people with disabilities in the world” due to conflict, people with disabilities are often shunned and blocked from Afghan society, according to Human Rights Watch. Women are often disproportionately affected.
Khudadadi was born without a forearm and said she spent her life hiding her arm. It wasn't until she started competing that things started to change.
“Before I started sports, 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 competing, 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 she gained attention in 2016, when she won an international medal for the first time.
That all changed five years later, when the Taliban made a dramatic rise to power following the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan. During the preparations for Tokyo, Khudadadi was trapped in the country's capital, Kabul.
The International Paralympic Committee initially issued a statement saying the Afghan team would not participate in the Games held in 2021 “due to the serious ongoing situation in the country.” But in an attempt to compete, Khudadadi released a video appealing to the international community for help.
“Please, I call on all of you, from women around the world, institutions for the protection of women, from all governmental organizations, not to let the rights of a female citizen of Afghanistan in the Paralympic movement be taken away, so easily,” she said. “I don't want my fight to be in vain.”
She was evacuated to Tokyo in 2021 to compete, leaving her family behind.
In doing so, she became the first Afghan female Paralympian in nearly two decades. In 2023, she won gold in the para-EC.
After fleeing Afghanistan, she settled in Paris, but she said she longs for the mix of cultures that paint her country and the openness of the people who walk Kabul's busy streets.
“I hope that one day I will be able to return to Afghanistan, to Kabul, to live life together in freedom and peace,” she said.
Thousands of miles away in Khudadadi's hometown of Herat, 38-year-old Shah Mohammad was one of those who threw his support behind Khudadadi and other Afghan female athletes in Paris.
“We are happy for the Afghan women who have gone to the Olympics, but my wish is that one day women from Afghanistan can participate in the games and be the voice of women from the country,” Mohammad said.
That day is unlikely anytime soon.
The Taliban have barred women from much of public life and blocked girls from studying beyond the sixth grade as part of a crackdown they have imposed since 2021 despite initially promising more moderate rule. Just in January, the UN said the Taliban are now restricting Afghan women's access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or have no male guardian.
Not only have they banned sports for women and girls, they have intimidated and harassed those who once played.
But even before the Taliban regained power, women's sports were opposed by many in the country's deeply conservative society, which was seen as an affront to women's modesty and their role in society.
Yet the previous, Western government had programs that encouraged women's sports and school clubs, leagues and national teams.
For Khudadadi, the IOC refugee team helped her and other athletes who have fled their countries to continue their careers. The Paralympian trains long hours – with her sights set on a gold medal in Paris – with deep frustration as she watches women's progress in her country erode and Afghanistan once again falls out of the global spotlight.
A question simmers in Khudadadi's mind: “Why has the world forgotten Afghan women?”
Still, for others like Mohammad Amin Sharifi, 43, seeing Khudadadi and other Afghan Olympians in Paris, especially women, has been a source of pride for people like him in Afghanistan.
“Right now we need to raise the voices of Afghan women in every possible way and the Olympics is the best place for that,” said Sharifi from Kabul. “We are happy and proud of the women who represent the Afghan people.”