Transportation
Biking Toward Women's Rights in Afghanistan
Every day, the Women's National Cycling Team of Afghanistan faces ridicule and threats. And still they ride—with their eyes on the 2020 Olympics.
Low literacy rates. High rates of sexual violence. Maternal mortality. Domestic abuse. Forced marriage. Afghanistan has long been one of the most difficult places to be a woman, and despite great progress since the days of Taliban domination, legislation designed to protect women and give them civil rights has been fought at every turn by some who claim it is “un-Islamic.”
One small group of Afghan women, however, is finding freedom and self-determination through the mastery of a simple machine: the bicycle.