… Maryam! A women’s rights activist campaigning for equality in women’s football in Iran. She’s a sports photographer and journalist, who stands up for women to be allowed to enter a football stadium. It was forbidden. Why? Because women could face verbal abuse or violence when watching a football game 🙄 Maryam’s pictures of female athletes were usually censored in the official media. Sportswomen in Iran are required to cover themselves from head to toe. Despite all the restrictions they have been active in international competitions. However, international games are not broadcasted on the state television because they feature foreign women players, who are not covered. Iran has barred female spectators from football for around 40 years, with clerics arguing they must be shielded from the masculine atmosphere and sight of semi-clad men. In October 2019 they were allowed to buy tickets for a qualifying match in men’s football for the first time. Only a few thousands of women were allowed to enter a stadium and watch a male game ⚽️ Once inside, the women were segregated from men by both empty stretches of seats and metal fencing erected around the sections reserved for women… Maryam and her work represent […] Read More
“When you grow up in a country like Libya, you need something to help you stay strong. And that was football for me,” said Fadwa El Bahi Fadwa lives in Tripoli. She comes from a family of four girls and one boy. She is the youngest. Her brother not only played football with but coached her too. Every day after she did her homework, she went out to kick. Fadwa grew up in a liberal family and she didn’t have to fight resistance within her family. She has been kicking on the streets of her hometown since she was a girl, but when she got older she was forbidden to do so. Women and football – that was strictly forbidden in Libya. After the overthrow of the dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011, female players were allowed to appear in public for the first time, and shortly afterwards they were threatened by Islamists. We met Fadwa in Lebanon 2015, for the first time. The Libyan women’s football team has finally been able to participate in our DISCOVER FOOTBALL Festival. Two years before, their participation in our summer festival in Berlin was prohibited at short notice. I met a woman hidden behind […] Read More
KICKING AGAINST ALL ODDS In July 2015 the first women’s football festival took place in Lebanon, organised by DISCOVER FOOTBALL together with our network partner Girls Football Academy from Beirut. It was about networking of female footballers from the Middle East – and about an exchange on eye level. Teams from Egypt, Germany, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya and Palestine participated in this tournament and outreach work throughout Lebanon for girls’ living in refugee camps – mainly Syrian and Palestinian. In many countries female footballers are still struggling against resistance. There is often no support for women’s football from the state, public institutions or civil society. The football festival in Lebanon offered a contrast. The young generation want to help their country in other ways. Nadia Assaf and Walid Arakji founded the Girls Football Academy in 2011, the first organization in the Middle East dedicated exclusively to promoting girls. Nadia grew up in Australia, Walid in France. Their dream to pave the way for girls and women to participate in society. Whether the league can be maintained in Lebanon is questionable: Of the ten clubs that played in the league in 2006, only five are left. The clubs are burdened by high fees […] Read More
