Shahla Sekandari is used to fighting. This native Afghan has fought so many times against injustice and discrimination against women in her country… but she has also often fought in the true sense of the term. With boxing gloves. In a real ring. In Kabul.
“I did judo for 3-4 years but it wasn’t for me. What I wanted to do was boxing, ”she says, with a big smile. “My father had been in the army, at the time of [l’invasion] Russian. He always liked this sport and he said to me: “You too will do it.”
Sitting in comfortable clothes on a sofa in her living room in Pierrefonds, Shahla Sekandari, mother of three children, soon to be four, recounts her extraordinary adolescence, lived on her return to Kabul in 2001 after a forced exile in Pakistan. The war having taken its toll, his family had to live in a tent, pitched on the ruins of the family home in Kabul. Shahla, she only had it for sport.
“My father saw something in me. I helped him rebuild our house with my brothers, I did chores that the men did. He was like, ‘you’re my son,’” Shahla laughs, recalling what seem to have been fond memories for her.
I hope to see my family by my side one day. I don’t want it to be just a dream.
In Afghanistan, few women could practice sport without receiving threats. That didn’t stop Shahla, a young girl “with too much energy” and a self-described fan of Muhammad Ali, from putting on her first pair of gloves at 14. And even to dream of the Olympics.
“I knew it was difficult, the beatings, but I never complained. Fighting was part of my life. »
Fight against prejudice
Released in 2012, the NFB film The Boxing Girls of Kabul, by Canadian director Ariel Nasr, recounts with great sensitivity the struggle of Shahla, and two other teenage girls, who train with the means at hand against all odds. As the young girls dream of the 2012 London Olympics, Nasr’s camera documents all the beatings they’ve had to take, starting with the lack of support and the insults.
Shahla Sekandari was even hiding from some of her family members. Until they all saw her on television, returning from a championship in Vietnam with a bronze medal around her neck. “That was…great,” she said, still feeling the joy of that unique moment.
The fight to be able to box was no less daily, intervenes Maiwand, Shahla’s husband, who has been watching her with great pride since the start of the interview. “She knew that when she left the house, anything could happen. »
A few months before the London Olympics, Shahla was forced to stop training. “I was pregnant and I couldn’t go on anymore,” she says, without the slightest regret. “Our daughter, she is our gold medal,” interrupts her husband, all smiles.
Shahla continued to live her passion and the Afghan Boxing Federation even selected her as an assistant trainer, which disturbed a lot in this world of men. “I was threatened,” she said. She believes it was because she stood up to the culture of corruption that was entrenched at the time.
In 2014, while taking part in female leadership workshops in the United States, she realized that she would never set foot in Afghanistan again. “I received a lot of threats. My husband [resté à Kaboul] even had to move with my children,” she says. “I had more and more enemies. Among the Taliban too. I realized that if I went back there, I wouldn’t be alive. »
With a young Afghan girl in the same situation, Shahla headed for the unknown, crossing Roxham Road, to Quebec where she asked for asylum. After 18 months of waiting, she was finally able to reunite with her husband and children, thanks to the refugee status she had obtained.
The final fight
Since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, Shahla Sekandari has been engaged in an ultimate fight – not to say an ultimate fight: that of bringing three of her brothers and sisters back to her. “The family has broken up,” she laments, still emotionally shaken. Two of his brothers fled to Germany and his parents were able to take refuge in Denmark, because his mother worked for the embassy. But Laila, Engila and Dawood, law and music students in their twenties, are stranded in Pakistan. “The three of them live in one room, that’s where they also cook. It is very hot and there is no electricity all the time,” she says, referring to the threats of extortion they face. “They are depressed. »
In her crusade to bring her brother and sisters, Shahla was able to count on the support of director Ariel Nasr, who had become a friend, but also of Montrealer Sheila Laursen, who, touched by this story, convinced the Unitarian Church to Montreal to sponsor the three young Afghans. However, as revealed The duty last week, none of the private sponsorship files submitted during the call for applications in January 2022 have yet been processed by the Quebec government.
“I hope to see my family by my side one day. I wouldn’t want it to be just a dream,” Shahla says. And to see her determination, we understand that she will never drop the gloves.