{"id":382,"date":"2019-10-11T13:47:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T13:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=382"},"modified":"2019-10-11T13:47:08","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T13:47:08","slug":"no-more-girls-how-one-woman-is-making-a-name-for-herself-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2019\/10\/no-more-girls-how-one-woman-is-making-a-name-for-herself-in-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"No More Girls: How one woman is making a name for herself in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Picture1\"BY CATE BROWN <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Noorena Shams, and my name is based on a myth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Noorena tugs at her cascading ponytail, her fiery onyx eyes alight, \u201cPashtuns believe that whoever has this name for a daughter, then they will go on to give birth to a son. My name literally means, <\/span>No more girls<\/span><\/i>.\u201d A coy smile swells across her face. \u201cBut my father, he always told me that, for me, Noorena means, <\/span>No more girls like you<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And that may be true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Noorena Shams is an internationally ranked squash player from Dir Valley, Pakistan, a Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) along the border of Afghanistan, home to Pakistan\u2019s Pashtun minority, and once a formidable Taliban stronghold. At age 21, she has represented her country in over 127 international competitions and holds the distinction of being the first female athlete from Dir Valley in the past century. As a senior in high school, Noorena splits her time between training at The Jansher Khan Squash Academy in Peshawar, studying for college-entry exams like the ACTs and advocating for the rights of women and girls in sport. I spoke to Noorena while she was in New York, meeting with fellow social justice advocates at Human Rights Watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot many people take sports seriously in Pakistan,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I first started playing, I had to convince people that this was more than a hobby.\u201d <\/span>For Noorena, sports have become a way of life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt all started with cycling. My father gave me my first cycle when I was ten, but I wasn\u2019t allowed outside of the house because of security problems,\u201d said Noorena. \u201cAnd apart from that, girls don\u2019t go outside in Dir Valley. But I did.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon, Noorena was navigating more than domestic guards and disgruntled commuters. Close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Dir Valley was at the heart of a year-long offensive between Pakistani security forces and the Taliban. Over the course of 2009, The Pulitzer Center estimates that over 2.5 million civilians were displaced from the greater Dir Valley region: Noorena was one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the war started, all of our schools were closed,\u201d Noorena continued. \u201cWe were home all day, so I started playing cricket with my brothers and the soldiers.\u201d <\/span>Noorena describes life during the war: her house was bombed; she routinely woke up to cannon fire; her brother counted the bullet shells scattered across their yard every day. Jaw set, she rattled off the details as if jumping rope.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a year, I was sent to Peshawar for my studies since my Mom was very disturbed,\u201d <\/span>Noorena continued.<\/span> \u201cWhen I arrived, I found Mr. Islam and he became my cricket coach.\u201d <\/span>Although Coach Islam believed that Noorena was good enough to secure an athletic scholarship at the academy, only boys were invited to play. \u201c<\/span>So he gave me his surname, he cut my hair and I became his son.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For the next year, Noorena became \u2018Noor\u2019 and she enjoyed an incredibly successful career as the vice captain of Pakistan\u2019s Under-15 National cricket team. As a spinballer, she could run as fast as all the boys. She could hit as hard as all the boys. Everything was going well, as long as she didn\u2019t take a shower.<\/span><\/p>\n

At fifteen, the fa\u00e7ade began to crack. \u201c<\/span>There were guys with facial hair and voices changing and \u201cI realized, hey, I\u2019m in trouble… I can\u2019t do that!\u201d <\/span>Noorena folded into a deep-hearted laugh. Coach Islam agreed that it was time to share her secret with the entire team. And so they stood up at the end of practice and shared her growing secret.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe team was a bit shocked at first, but they also knew that they could not proceed without me,\u201d she said. \u201cSo the guys said, \u2018we don\u2019t care about your gender or something. You have to play with us.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The academy didn\u2019t feel the same. After Noor\u2019s identity became public, her scholarship was given to a boy and she was forced to find a new school, as well as an all-girls cricket team in Peshawar. Noorena cites this transition as a key turning point in her understanding of culture and sport in Pakistan. While the boys\u2019 team was all about cricket and nothing else, on the girls\u2019 team she was subject to daily homilies about how to think and behave in the rest of her life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe attitude and the behavior towards girls was totally different: There was no culture in sports for guys, but there was culture for girls,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was no religion in sports for guys, but there was for girls.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Disenchanted with women\u2019s team dynamics, Noorena turned her attention towards squash. A new sport brought new challenges. As a single female athlete, she was refused daily court-time based on her gender; she was asked to pay male opponents in exchange for their time; and she was afforded strength coaching, but only if she joined a men\u2019s calisthenic program where she was outnumbered 300 to 1.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After months of training, Noorena finally qualified for her first international tournament. She arrived in Malaysia only to find that her male coach had booked a single hotel room for their week-long stay. Noorena crossed countless boundaries in pursuit of sport, but she also recognized that certain boundaries kept her safe: she bought a sleeping bag and slept on the linoleum floor outside.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Picture1\"\u201cThe UN celebrates that sports are about equality and that they elevate girls, but sports can also create risk,\u201d says Minky Worden, Director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch (HRW). Minky has helped promote Noorena\u2019s campaign for women and girls on the global stage. <\/span>\u201cIn Noorena\u2019s case, it was like Russian roulette that she didn\u2019t get sexually assaulted by her coaches or by the other players.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Worden leads an innovative campaign that advocates for human rights through sports. By harnessing their popular appeal, Worden believes that athletes are well-positioned to shift the needle on important social justice issues. \u201c<\/span>There is a tradition of this<\/span>\u2014<\/span> Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Jackie Robinson,\u201d Worden said. \u201cI really see Noorena in that pantheon of athlete-activists who are prepared to elevate other athletes and human rights more generally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Noorena still faces gender-based discrimination, but she believes that things are changing. This past December, Noorena was invited to join The National Sports Committee in Pakistan where she\u2019ll be able to weigh-in on the future of her nation\u2019s sports. She has also been invited to speak in front of The UN Human Rights Council, and in 2018, she was the first-ever female athlete-activist to hold the floor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Out of all her successes, Noorena is proudest of her impact back home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I thought the people from Dir would never support me, but once they saw me having success, there are so many<\/span>\u2014<\/span> even men<\/span>\u2014<\/span> supporting me now,\u201d Noorena said. \u201cThey have even pushed me to build a squash court in Dir. This makes me happy. I\u2019m not only changing things for women; I am changing things for boys as well.\u201d<\/span>