When Nouhaila Benzina stepped onto the sphere for Morocco’s first match of the Girls’s World Cup towards Germany, she made historical past — and never simply as a participant for the primary Arab or North African nation ever within the event.
The 25-year-old defender is the primary participant to put on the Islamic headband on the senior-level Girls’s World Cup. She and the Atlas Lionesses have since reached the knockout levels on their debut marketing campaign, dealing with France within the last-16.
“Ladies will take a look at Benzina (and assume) ‘That may very well be me,’” mentioned Assmaah Helal, a co-founder of the Muslim Girls in Sports activities Community mentioned of the hijab. “Additionally the policymakers, the decision-makers, the directors will say, ‘We have to do extra in our nation to create these accepting and open and inclusive areas for girls and women to take part within the sport.’”
Benzina, who performs skilled membership soccer for the Affiliation’s Sports activities of Forces Armed Royal – the eight-time defending champions in Morocco’s high girls’s league.
“We’re honored to be the primary Arab nation to participate within the Girls’s World Cup,” Morocco captain Ghizlane Chebbak mentioned earlier than the event, “and we really feel that we’ve to shoulder a giant accountability to provide a superb picture, to point out the achievements the Moroccan workforce has made.”
Nouhaila Benzina helped make historical past as Morocco defeated Colombia to achieve the last-16
(Getty Photos)
Had Morocco certified for the Girls’s World Cup a decade in the past, a participant who needed to put on the hijab throughout a sport may need been compelled to decide on between that and representing her nation.
In 2007, a referee barred an 11-year-old Canadian woman from carrying a hijab throughout a membership match. When the difficulty reached FIFA, the game’s world governing physique banned head coverings in competitions it sanctioned, apart from coverings that uncovered the neck.
Fifa cited “well being and security” considerations, some associated to doable choking, with rules forbidding “gear that’s harmful to himself or one other participant.”
“That actually despatched a robust message to Muslim girls, significantly those that put on hijabs, (that) we don’t belong,” mentioned Helal, an Australia-based operations supervisor of Creating Probabilities and Soccer United.
Helal was among the many social activists, Muslim athletes, and authorities and soccer officers who labored to overturn the ban.
In 2012, Fifa granted the Asian Soccer Confederation a two-year trial interval throughout which gamers can be allowed to put on head coverings at worldwide competitions. No senior-level World Cups, males’s or girls’s, had been scheduled in the course of the trial interval.
In 2014, Fifa lifted its ban on head coverings. Two years later, the under-17 Girls’s World Cup in Jordan marked the primary time Muslim gamers wore headscarves throughout a global FIFA occasion.
Maryan Hagi-Hashi, a Melbourne resident who attended Morocco’s public observe session final week, mentioned she is supporting the Atlas Lionesses alongside event co-host Australia. She appreciates the illustration that the Moroccan workforce and Benzina present, she mentioned.
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“There’s a combination of (Muslim) girls that put on hijab and don’t put on a hijab,” Hagi-Hashi mentioned. “I believe the world has realized there’s variety.”
Helal mentioned that because the ban was lifted, she has seen a rise in Muslim women and girls taking part in soccer, pursuing teaching pathways and main their very own soccer golf equipment.
“I believe it’s key to grasp that the hijab is a necessary a part of a Muslim girl, ought to she select to put on it,” Helal mentioned. “It’s really a part of our identities.”
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