Cricket Australia says it is “unable to proceed” with an upcoming three-match day series against Afghanistan due to worsening conditions for women and girls in the country, under Taliban rule.
It comes after Foreign Affairs minister Penny Wong warned the Taliban in December that their increasing oppression of women and girls, “will have consequences for how our countries engage with the Taliban.”
Such consequences appear to have hit hard and shifted from politics to sport, and it already hurts. The Afghanistan Cricket Board has slammed the Australian decision and threatened to prohibit Afghanistan players from participating in key international competitions in response to the move. Some of Afghanistan’s key cricketers have declared that politics should not be mixed with sport, with one taking to Twitter to say their team had expected support for what Afghanistan is going through, “rather than taking away the only one happiness we have.”
But sport is, sadly, highly intertwined with politics in Afghanistan, given one half of the population has been restricted from playing since the Taliban seized control in September 2021. Afghanistan is the only full member of the ICC to not have a women’s team. There will be no team representing Afghanistan at this weekend’s inaugural Women’s U19 T20 World Cup.
In the past few months, the oppression of women and girls has gotten significantly worth, putting to absolute shame any suggestion by the Taliban that they could ever form a legitimate government.
Late last year, the Taliban announced new restrictions on education for women and girls, as well as further limitations on work. Women and girls were banned from all government and private universities, taking immediate effect in December. At the time, the Taliban were warned that the stance would further alienate its government from the rest of the world and “deny them the legitimacy they desire”, while Penny Wong declared Australia stands with the women of Afghanistan. “The country’s future relies on women and girls’ access to education.”
On Christmas Eve, the Taliban issued a ban on women working for national and international NGOs. Women are also banned from parks, gyms and offices and are required to wear head-to-toe coverings. An 11 country statement condemning the education ban noted that the Taliban’s oppressive measures against women and girls have been “relentless and systemic.”
Cricket Australia said in its statement on the decision that the move comes in direct response to the latest restrictions on women and girls’ education and employment, and thanked the Australian government for its support.
ICC CEO Geoff Allardice has said that their board is monitoring the situation and “progress” since the regime change, and will be considering it at their next meeting in March.
“CA is committed to supporting growing the game for women and men around the world, including in Afghanistan, and will continue to engage with the Afghanistan Cricket Board in anticipation of improved conditions for women and girls in the country,” the CA statement read.