She wanted to contact us, through social networks, to tell us regarding her daily life and hope to get help to leave her country. Zarghunna was a young girl full of ambition. As a college student, she trained hard to become the best in taekwondo. “I used to go to class every day for six hours. And then I trained. Now I’m at home and I secretly give free training to poor girls from 3 to 5 p.m. she.
Secretly, because the Taliban prohibit sports practice for women. “As soon as I go to the room, I scan the valley and I tell the girls to do the same, she says. And if they see members of the Taliban, they go home”. Zarghunna must cover herself from head to toe so as not to be identified when she goes out. Hijab, hat, mask, only her eyes are visible. “I change my path when I see the Taliban, they scare me.” Training given in a room in Herat, the city in which she lives with her little sister and her mother, more than eight hundred kilometers from Kabul, the capital.
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“The fifteen girls I train, who are between 8 and 25 years old, are poor. I give lessons for free. rich. Students were asked for five dollars a month,” she recalls. But today, life in Afghanistan has become very expensive. “It’s hard. I have no more money to help my family, to eat, to dress, especially in winter. I feel very bad”. His dad left for Iran: “He is 65 years old and cannot work. My 15-year-old brother is with him, so as not to be recruited by the Taliban to fight in the country.” And her two other sisters are married and left Afghanistan.
“I want to continue to practice my sport in an environment where I don’t risk dying”
She also wants to leave. As quickly as possible. Like some girls who were members of the Afghan national taekwondo team. “Eight are in Australia thanks to the Australian Federation. One is in France thanks to the Ministry of Sports. Others in Italy, Iran, Pakistan, United States and England. In Herat, there are four girls left in the team”. The one who was national champion in 2018, knows it, she needs international help to leave Afghanistan.
“I asked the French Ministry of Sports to help me to continue to practice my sport in an environment where I do not risk dying and where I can achieve my goals. But I have never had an answer from the authorities. and as I am in danger I call once more on the French Ministry of Sports to help me”. A call to find hope. To regain his freedom. “I want to leave the country because I cannot grow and achieve my goals.”
“I dream of going to the Olympic Games.”
And goals, dreams, the 22-year-old has a head full of them. “I want to participate in international competitions, especially in Europe. But my biggest dream is to go to the Olympic Games in Paris”. She discovered taekwondo when she was 14: “With a friend, we were coming home from school and a new club had just opened. We went to see. I was super happy when I saw that the coach was from South Korea, he coached really well, so we signed up.” Since then, thanks to this trainer, Master Tai Lim, Zarghunna has become a real hope for his sport in Afghanistan.
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But today, it has become impossible for him to register for competitions. “Next March 3, I was invited to the international taekwondo championships and I asked the Afghan Federation to register me, they refused. The federation tells me that they cannot register me because of the Taliban .As I’m trying to achieve my goals, they want to stop me.”
“I am depressed”
There she is without a solution, a situation that worries her family. “My parents are very worried. We are poor, they can’t help me leave. But they advised me to call someone who might do it for them.” The young woman hopes that her voice will be heard, that the authorities, especially the French, will come to her aid. In addition to being unable to practice her sport, Zarghunna lives in fear on a daily basis. “Every day, the Taliban kidnap people, especially girls. They rape them or marry them off. Where I live, at least fifty girls have been secretly detained and there are no more traces of them.”
A life that changed on August 15, 2021. The date on which Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban. When Americans were still present in the country, she tried to study abroad. A failure. “It would have allowed me to grow up more easily and have a better job.” But despite all this, she did not want to stop her studies.
Although banned by the Taliban from going to university, Zarghunna takes French and English lessons on the internet. “Even if I study it’s not like before. I no longer have the freedom to train, to simply breathe. I’m depressed. When I go to the gym to give lessons, it’s better.” Two hours where she trains which allow her to breathe a little, to quickly find a smile. But today, her future, she wants to build it elsewhere.
