India: Football as a symbol of girls' rights

Should sport be only for boys? Chachiyawa, a village in Rajasthan, India, was one of the first villages in the area where the girls refused to accept this any longer. Sixty young female players came together there – more than enough to form a joint team. However, they initially faced a problem: what they lacked was a suitable football pitch.

At first, the girls played near the forest. Although weeds and other plants grew there, it was better than nothing. However, this also meant the pitch was located away from the village – too "dangerous" in the eyes of some parents, who had never been enthusiastic about the idea of ​​their daughters playing football in the first place. Some had even forbidden it.

The girls, however, persisted. And they found a solution: they asked their grandmothers for help. With their grandmothers present, there was little objection to the meetings, and the team grew and grew. At one point, it had more than 80 players.

Consequently, the search for a proper football pitch continued. For a while, the girls played on private property, later in the backyard of a restaurant. They finally found a suitable solution with the help of the local girls' rights organization Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti, or MJAS for short. The terre des hommes partner organization supported the idea of ​​the football team and promptly submitted a request to the district government. The government, in turn, soon instructed the village schools to finally provide the girls with a suitable playing field.

This didn't go down well everywhere: Now the school administration has advised the girls against playing, arguing that it "would not contribute to their future success." The principals even contacted the parents and recommended that they forbid their daughters from playing.

But the girls still refused to give up. And in the end, their determination paid off: they managed to secure their place.

Today, around 50 girls regularly participate in the sports sessions, supported by coaches from the community. With the help of MJAS, the pitch was recently further improved, cleaned, and leveled. The girls can finally kick the ball around freely – without obstacles or tripping hazards.