NAJAF (Iraq): Iraqi boxer Bushra Hajjar jumps into the ring, gloves raised to eye level, and strikes at her sparring partner. Her bigger struggle, though, is to deliver a blow against social expectations.
In Iraq’s Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf, the sight of a women’s boxing hall is unusual but, like others here, the 35-year-old instructor is fighting deeply ingrained taboos.
“At home, I have a full training room with mats and a punching bag,” says the mother of two, who also practises karate. Hajjar won gold in the 70kg-class at a boxing tournament in Baghdad in December.
“My family and friends are very supportive, they’re very happy with the level I’ve reached,” she adds, a blue headscarf pulled tightly over her hair.
Twice a week, she trains at a private university in Najaf, 100km south of the capital, where she also teaches sports.
In overwhelmingly conservative Iraq, and particularly in Najaf, Bushra acknowledges her adventure has raised eyebrows.
“We’ve come across many difficulties,” she says. “We’re a conservative society that has difficulty accepting these kinds of things.”
She recalls the protests when training facilities first opened for women, but says “today, there are many halls”.
‘Macho society’
Boxing student Ola Mustafa, 16, taking a break from her punching bag, tells AFP: “We live in a macho society that opposes success for women.”
However, she has the support not only of her trainer but also of her parents and brother, signalling that social change is afoot.
“People are gradually beginning to accept it. If more girls try it out, society will automatically come to accept it.”
Iraqi boxing federation president Ali Taklif acknowledges that Iraqi women engaging in the sport is a “recent phenomenon”, but says it is gaining ground.
“There is a lot of demand from females wanting to join,” he says, adding that Iraq now has some 20 women’s boxing clubs.
More than 100 female boxers competed in a tournament last month, in all categories, he adds.
But “like other sports (in Iraq), the discipline suffers from a lack of infrastructure, training facilities and equipment”.
From dads to daughters
Iraq had a proud tradition of women in sports, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Whether in basketball, volleyball or cycling, women’s teams regularly took part in regional tournaments.
But sanctions, decades of conflict, and a hardening of conservative social values brought this era to a close, with only the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq largely spared.
There has been a timid reversal in recent years, with women taking up a range of sports, also including kickboxing.
For Hajer Ghazi, who at age 13 won a silver medal last month, boxing runs in the family. Her father, a veteran professional boxer, encourages his children to follow in his footsteps. Both her sisters and older brother Ali are also boxers.
“Our father supports us more than the state does,” says Ali in their hometown of Amarah in southwestern Iraq.
Her father, Hassanein Ghazi, a 55-year-old truck driver who won several medals in his heyday, insists: “Women have the right to play sports, it’s only normal.”
He recognises certain “sensitivities” remain, linked to traditional tribal values. For example, “when their coach wants them to run, he takes them to the outskirts of town”, away from too many onlookers.