All posts tagged: Afghanistan women

Afghan Women Turn To AI Companions Amid Taliban’s Harsh Restrictions

Afghan Women Turn To AI Companions Amid Taliban’s Harsh Restrictions

Published by Webster

Left isolated due to the draconian policies of the Taliban administration, women in Afghanistan have been forced to turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for friendship. Since seizing power in 2021 after the US hastily withdrew its troops, the Taliban has imposed a series of oppressive measures against women in the country, restricting their independence and ability to co-exist as a normal human being. Lima, an 18-year-old from rural Afghanistan, told BBC that she is seeking help of AI and treating it as a friend to get through the days. “Reading novel, or chatting with AI, usually, to empty every single word of me – to talk, ask questions, or simply treat as a friend,” she said when quizzed about how she spends her mornings. “The AI app makes a character of your favourite idol. All the famous people you know you can talk with them or say anything you want. You can ask them questions. You can give yourself a fake hope and make them your friend or family.” Apart from AI, Lima finds solace in …

Burning their cricket jerseys, travelling in small groups and taking risks to cross border: The story of how Afghanistan women cricketers reached Australian shores | Cricket News

Burning their cricket jerseys, travelling in small groups and taking risks to cross border: The story of how Afghanistan women cricketers reached Australian shores | Cricket News

Published by Webster

A ‘backyard immigration office’, players burning their cricketing jerseys and equipment, travelling as small groups and other secret plans. That was how the 19 Afghanistan contracted women cricketers along with their coaches and families were pulled from Afghanistan to Pakistan and then Australia by the Australian cricket authorities. With Taliban banning women’s cricket in the country in 2021, 19 contracted women cricketers including cricketer Benafsha Hashimi were helped by former Australian cricketer and commentator Mel Jones in their journey to Australia. As the Afghanistan XI faces Cricket Without Borders XI in an exhibition match at Junction Oval ahead of the day-night Women’s Ashes Test , Jones has opened up on the rescue act. It was during Jones’ quarantine in a Melbourne hotel that the cricketer messaged Hashimi. “You don’t know who I am. But do you, and any of the players, think that your lives are in threat, and would you like to look at potentially getting out?,” Jones told Fox Cricket about her message to Hashimi in 2021. According to the report, Hasimi replied, …

Afghanistan women’s team to enter field after 2021, to face Cricket Without Borders XI

Afghanistan women’s team to enter field after 2021, to face Cricket Without Borders XI

Published by Parlour News

Melbourne, The Afghanistan women’s cricket team, comprising refugees living in Australia, will play a T20 match against Cricket Without Borders XI at the Junction Oval here on Thursday, first outing for them on a cricket field since 2021. Afghanistan women’s team to enter field after 2021, to face Cricket Without Borders XI The cricket team members, who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, have been living in Canberra and Melbourne since arriving in Australia. The match will be played ahead of the opening day of the day-night Women’s Ashes Test at the MCG between Australia and England. “I think this is a first step. I think it’s going to be such an exciting day on Thursday, and my hope is that promotes lots of conversations, that this becomes an annual thing and then ultimately, that this team were able to compete on the international stage as is their want,” said Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley during a press meet. “I don’t think any of us can comprehend what they’ve been through moving to a …

Afghan women just wanna ‘Bend it like Bumrah’ but the world failed them | Cricket News

Afghan women just wanna ‘Bend it like Bumrah’ but the world failed them | Cricket News

Published by Webster

Gurinder Chadha’s much-acclaimed and charmingly funny 2002 movie Bend It Like Beckham starts with the football-crazy teen Jess imagining herself as David Beckham while watching England’s set-piece superstar on television. But then, that’s not what girls in families with Indian roots settled in Hounslow, West London are “supposed to do”. They can’t play ball, it’s Barbies for them. Not training partners, they are supposed to look for life partners. Good Indian girls also don’t get coached to master free-kicks, they are taught to get that perfect brown on their aloo-gobi. Jess’s elder sister is getting engaged, her mother, the highly-inflammable Mrs Bhamra, is in a tizzy. Losing her lid over her daughter’s indifference to festivities at home, she shouts: “Football, shootball! … Your sister’s getting engaged and you’re watching this skinhead boy!” That’s when Jess says something very important but is lost on her mother — and might have gone over the head of most parents of a girl-child across the globe, world leaders, especially the Taliban. “Mum, it’s Beckham’s corner!” Jess says in helpless …

Rashid Khan urges Taliban to reconsider ban on medical education for women in Afghanistan | Cricket News

Rashid Khan urges Taliban to reconsider ban on medical education for women in Afghanistan | Cricket News

Published by Webster

Afghanistan cricket superstar Rashid Khan on Wednesday urged the Taliban government to reconsider the ban on medical training for women in the country. On Monday, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada issued a directive barring women from attending medical and semi-professional institutes, which was recognised as one of the last-surviving options for higher education for women in Afghanistan since late 2021. The Taliban government barred girls from secondary education past sixth grade in September 2021 before closure of colleges in 2022. “The Taliban have also banned women in some provinces from being treated by male medical professionals, which means that this new decree, halting the training of new female healthcare workers, will result in unnecessary pain, misery, sickness, and death for the women forced to go without health care, as there won’t be female healthcare workers to treat them,” the Human Rights Watch reported on Tuesday. Responding to the Taliban decision, Rashid stressed that “education holds a central place in Islamic teachings, emphasizing the pursuit of knowledge for both men and women.” 🤲🏻🤲🏻🇦🇫🇦🇫 pic.twitter.com/rYtNtNaw14 — Rashid Khan …

Benafsha, the Afghan cricket queen, who defeated the Taliban, by building her own life, taking the team along, talking a lot and listening to Farsi love ballads | Cricket News

Benafsha, the Afghan cricket queen, who defeated the Taliban, by building her own life, taking the team along, talking a lot and listening to Farsi love ballads | Cricket News

Published by Webster

Benafsha Hashimi is sitting on her father’s lap, stroking his beard, in Kabul, Afghanistan when an advisory message plays out on the television. “Don’t come to Australia illegally on boats”, a note for the many immigrant residents risking, often losing, their lives to get across. Little Benafsha thinks Australia is just on the other side of the big river in Kabul. “I shall go there, pedar (Father, in Dari language) one day, I have to just cross the river”. The father tells her she has to learn swimming first. “Don’t worry, I can go in a boat!” The father laughs but assures her that she can go the proper way one day but she has to study hard and grow up. Nearly one-and-half decades later, in 2021, the 21 year old Hashimi has ended up in Canberra in Australia, escaping the clutches of Taliban, surviving the death of her father, an Afghan special forces soldier, in mysterious circumstances. But she also witnessed an aunt who bled to death, besides myriad shootings, before dragging her entire …