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Kurdistan
United States' team celebrates after winning the Women's World Cup at the Stade de Lyon on July 7, 2019. Photo: AP/ Alessandra Tarantino
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – With the Women’s World Cup concluding in yet another American victory, Kurdish women have called on the international community to invest in women’s football in the Region.
The US women’s team has proven formidable, having won four World Cups, four Olympic gold medals and eight CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) Gold Cups. It has medalled in every single World Cup and Olympic tournament in women's soccer history from 1991 to 2015, before being knocked out in the quarter-final of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Former US President Barack Obama congratulated the women on their victory in a tweet.
Yes! Fourth star. Back to back. Congrats to the record breakers on the @USWNT, an incredible team that's always pushing themselves—and the rest of us—to be even better. Love this team. #OneNationOneTeam
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 7, 2019
Artist and humanitarian activist Dashni Morad told Rudaw English that the international community should "invest in women's football in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq as a whole."
"This is a way to empower women and a way to put the Kurdistan Region, and Iraq, on the world map in a positive light," she added.
"We have proven that football is also a woman's game and that we women work and that it's not just fun and beautiful to watch women play - it's serious," Morad added.
The US team beat the Netherlands 2-0 in tonight’s final. Morad, a Kurdish-Dutch singer, said her team "fought hard in tonight's game. It was a true inspiration to me and too many women around the world who have to keep fighting because our rights are still not respected. This evening the world witnessed how strong and amazing women are in the world of football."
She dedicated tonight's match to women "fighting for gender equality."
Speaking on a special, pre-match program on Rudaw TV, Kawsar Kaka, a player with Erbil Women's Club, said women’s football has yet to take center stage in the Kurdistan Region, adding that her women’s team does not have a woman coach.
"We don't have female coaches mainly because women spend a very short period of time in sports," Kaka noted. "For example, I may play for another six years before getting married, after which my husband might let me work as a coach."
She said she refused marriage proposals from men who have asked her to quit playing football as a condition of matrimony.
"I turned [them] down over this," she said, adding her father has "always supported me."
Morad and Kaka’s comments appear to have resonated with the show’s viewers, who say there is not enough space or opportunity for women to play football in Kurdistan.
Commented on Rudaw's Facebook page, Shewan Kurdi said that "Kurdish women are not even allowed to go and watch football matches at stadiums, let alone play football."
Women are subject to "social constraints” that make it "very difficult" to see any improvement in women’s engagement in sports in the Kurdistan Region, Lazhan Ahmad said on social media, asserting that "the education system needs an overall, grassroots change."
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