By: Sherin Yousfi
Zahra’s high blood pressure and dyspnea – that took two years to get under control – are back. With women banned from gyms in Kabul, the 42-year-old can no longer access the supervised exercise her doctor advised.
“My blood pressure changed two weeks after I stopped going to the gym. I feel short of breath. The doctor told me that I should exercise every day, but at the moment I have no place to train and no coach, and my condition is getting worse every day,” she says. “Afghanistan is not the place where women my age go to gym out of joy. We all need and have to do it for our health.”
Since the Taliban banned women from gyms, many women have described their worsening health to Rukhshana Media.
At least seven women, who suffer from various ailments including high blood pressure, shortness of breath, overweight, diabetes, lumbar discs, and depression, spoke to Rukhshana about the gym ban has had on their lives. Exercising in their homes is not the equivalent due to the lack of facilities and proper space.
Zahra is a mother of five. Suffering from excessive weight complications and high blood pressure, she visited a doctor for help two years ago. She was strongly advised to made regular exercise part of her long-term treatment. Since heeding the advice, her health improved. But now the symptoms have returned.
The Taliban announced the decision to close women’s sports clubs and gyms in Afghanistan on November 13.
Mohammad Akef Sadeq Mohajer, the Taliban spokesperson for the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told media outlet AFP, “Gyms are closed for women because their trainers are men and some of the gyms were mixed.”
However, the women Rukhshana spoke to disagree.
Basira, 34, was exercising in her local sports club the day the ban was announced. She says she will never forget the bitterness of that day and the humiliation the women suffered from the Taliban.
“The sound of music was so loud that we didn’t hear the Taliban kicking the club gate straight away. Then when our trainer went to open the gate, we saw it was the Taliban. Our gym was underground, and they insulted us saying, ‘You have set up a brothel in the basement’,” she says. “They gave us 20 minutes to change our clothes and get out, before they tore up the license of the gym and sealed the gate shut.”
Basira says there were only ever women in the gym when she was there, including the coaches. And the severe back pain she was managing through strength training has returned.
“In the month since I stopped exercising, my back pain has increased. Sometimes I can’t even stand up,” she says.
The Taliban have cracked down on women’s sports along with women’s education and other areas of public life. Many women who used to play professional sports have fled the country or some live in hiding because of the fear the Taliban will publish them, or make an example of them. Afghanistan now has no female athletes in international competitions, and nationally all sport competitions for women have ceased.
Human Rights Watch has called for Afghanistan’s membership in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to be suspended. The IOC has said that the participation of the country’s representatives in the 2024 Summer Olympics will be conditional on the safe access of women and girls to sports.
Sia-Mooy, 28, is dealing with excessive weight and has found since the gyms closed that her shortness of breath has uncomfortably increased. At home she takes care of her children and does housework, and not much else. She takes sharp breaths between her words as she speaks. While wiping the sweat from her forehead with the corner of her scarf, she says that these days she does not dare to leave the house much as she is afraid that she will lose her breath on the way and not be able to move.
She says she worries that she will die young due to her health and that she will not see her two-year-old son grow up.
“I don’t have the facilities to exercise at home,” she says. “Because of my heavy weight, since I stopped exercising, I find I can’t walk more than a few steps before I’m short of breath,” she says, adding that she views the ban on women’s sport as just another part of the Taliban’s misogyny with no basis in Sharia law.
Many women have told Rukhshana Media that the restrictions of the Taliban has had a deeply negative affect on their psyche, and one way they managed some of the mental health impacts was through exercise. Now that’s gone too.
For 31-year-old Siddiqa, books in the corner of her room are her only companion. But she doesn’t read them anymore. Before the Taliban came to power last year, Siddiqa used to devour books and dream of a bright future. But these days she finds it too hard to read. Sometimes she’ll just flip through the book for a distraction.
She never imagined one day she’d be taking medication for depression and struggling to muster any interest in life.
“What a day we fell into,” she says.
Based on her doctor’s recommendation, Siddiqa was advised to exercise regularly in addition to taking the medication. She found the gym took the edge off.
“When I went to the gym, the two hours passed so quickly. There was music, us women got to know each other, and for a few moments I was away from all my worries,” she says.
Siddiqa has a master’s degree in sociology from South Asian International University in India. She says that not being able to work has compounded the deep depression she feels. Pointing to the black shadows around her eyes, she says that she has come down with many illnesses and diseases in the past one year.
For 15-year-old Shabnam, Taekwondo was her escape when high schools were closed to girls. She regularly trained at a women’s only club for at least a year until the day the Taliban shut the gates.
Bahar Ahmadi, the manager of a women’s club in the west of Kabul, tells Rukhshana Media that the Taliban has simply declared all licenses of women’s clubs invalid. The Taliban has also warned the owners of the buildings that if they rent the place to women for sports, they will be imprisoned.
“Apart from martial arts, most of the women who went to the club were women who had health problems. Especially after the fall of the previous government, no one was exercising merely out of enthusiasm for it. Unfortunately, I am now also forced to be homebound. The Taliban warned us that they would imprison us if we allow women to gather together,” she says.
Many doctors agree that exercise is necessary for women’s mental and physical health and there are serious concerns about the consequences of stopping it altogether. One of the doctors in Kabul says that he recommends exercise for many of his unwell patients.
“Women lose essential substances in their bodies during pregnancy and childbirth. In addition to taking nutritious food, they should have physical activity. A bulging disc is one of the most common diseases among women, so I definitely recommend strengthening exercises for this whenever possible,” Noorullah Noori, an orthopedic specialist in Kabul, says in a phone call.
Women are gradually being erased from public spaces in Afghanistan. Banning women from playing sport and closing gyms is just one of dozens of Taliban restrictions have imposed on women since August last year.
