LONDON, 19 Nov 2017:
From using football to highlight women’s rights in Africa to defying stereotypes in the Middle East through climbing Mount Everest, campaigners said sports have become an effective way for women to smash taboos to achieve greater equality.
Millions of girls globally are kept from school due to poverty or early marriage, while a third of women suffer sexual violence at some point in their life, UN data shows.
But increasingly women are starting to reclaim their rights and challenge obstacles to women through sports, activists told the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s annual Trust Conference.
In Kenya, lawyer Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan has been using football since 2003 to engage women and youth to promote peace and in a campaign against female genital mutilation.
Playing football has been taboo for girls in the African nation but Adan’s group has trained some 1,500 girls in over 150 villages across the country, boosting their confidence.
“They are not just kicking the ball to score goals – they are scoring goals for life,” said Adan, adding using laws alone to fight for women’s rights did not challenge perceptions and traditions.
“Using something that is a taboo to break another taboo is the best thing we can ever do.”
For Raha Moharrak, pressure from her family to marry motivated her to make history by becoming the first Saudi Arabian woman to scale Mount Everest in 2013.
“When someone tells you now you are old, you need to find a guy, it’s a lot of pressure and very insulting … I am destined for more than just waiting for Prince Charming.”
She joked that she picked climbing mountains as the dangers associated with the sport were “perfect” to divert her parents’ attention from pressuring her to get marry.
“I refuse to fit into the mold that everyone wants me to fit into,” said Moharrak, 31, who has climbed seven of the world’s highest mountains since.
In the Himalayas, although nuns are traditionally expected to cook and clean, Jigme Wangchuk Lhamo and her group nicknamed the “Kung Fu nuns” have been teaching women martial arts as self-defence and a form of empowerment.
Wangchuk, from an age-old Buddhist sect based mainly in India and Nepal, said kung fu gives women confidence to tackle sexual violence which is a major concern in India where government figures showed in 2015 there were four rapes an hour.
“People tell us we should sit and pray and yeah, we do that. But our job is to better society,” the 19-year-old nun said. “Our duty is to help others. I am a daughter, a sister, a woman, as well as a nun.”
The Buddhist nuns swapped their maroon robes for black belts – performing somersaults, high kicks, splits and punches to demonstrate how they are using kung fu to empower women in the conservative Himalayas.
The two nuns – from an age-old Buddhist sect based mainly in India and Nepal – are not only raising eyebrows due to their martial arts expertise, but are also teaching women in India self defence amid rising reports of sex crimes.
“Some people make comments. They say we should just sit and pray and meditate,” said Jigme – who demonstrated her skills on stage at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Trust Conference.
“But a nun’s duty is more than that. We have to better society and do good for others.”
There were 34,651 rapes reported in India in 2015 – four every hour – up 43% from 2011, government data shows. Activists say the figures are a gross underestimate.
“Girls face problems when they go out and especially in the evening they don’t want to go out alone,” said Wangchuk. “Kung fu can help them … kung fu makes you confident.”
About 700 nuns globally belong to the Drukpa lineage, which is the only female order in the patriarchal Buddhist monastic system where nuns have equal status to monks.
Traditionally, nuns are expected to cook and clean and are not permitted to engage in sports. But this changed a decade ago when the leader of the 1,000-year-old sect, His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa, encouraged the nuns to learn kung fu.
He also gave the nuns leadership roles, supported them to study beyond Buddhist teachings and become electricians and plumbers, and to take a more active role in their communities.
They treat sick animals, organise eye care camps and have trekked and cycled through the Himalayas to raise awareness on issues from pollution to human trafficking.
In the aftermath of a massive earthquake in Nepal in 2015, the nuns trekked to remote villages to remove rubble, clear pathways and distribute food and medicines to survivors.
They also heard that girls and women were being trafficked across the border to India.
“It was terrible. People were selling their sisters, daughters and even mothers just to have money to rebuild their homes,” Wangchuk told delegates at the conference, which focuses on modern day slavery and women’s empowerment.
“Some men just see girls as a bunch of money … but we need to change this and help promote equality. His Holiness likes to encourage girls. He says there can be no world peace unless we are all equal.”
– Reuters