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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – In Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, rights activist Maryam Durani has found a new outlet for her decades of advocacy: a new gym for women.
Durani, 36, is a fierce defender of women’s rights in the conservative stronghold where the militant Islamist group Taliban has great influence and takes a conservative stance on the position of women, who mostly wear burqas in public.
She runs a women’s radio station, has served on the provincial council, and was awarded the International Women of Courage Award by Michelle Obama in 2012. Last year, Durani changed tack to open a women-only gym, which attracts about 50 women attend every day.
“The reaction from the ladies was very positive because they needed it,” she said, shortly after training with a group of clients. “What bothered me was the reaction of the men … who reacted negatively to our club and even insulted me because they thought our club was against Sharia.”
With a signed troop withdrawal between the United States and the Taliban, who have waged a bloody war for 19 years, many women in Afghanistan fear the militant group could exert its influence through formal political channels.
When the Taliban ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, they prohibited women’s education and prohibited women from leaving home without a male relative.
The group says it has changed, but many women remain skeptical.
“My only concern is their vision of women’s rights and the freedoms and restrictions that they will impose on me,” Durani said.
For now, her focus is on serving the dozens of women who attend the club, whom she describes as a cross-section of society, including homemakers and women who work outside the home.
“My only wish is to be seen as a human being in this society,” he said.
(Reporting by Ismail Samim, additional reporting by Hameed Farzad; written by Charlotte Greenfield; edited by Sam Holmes)
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