Nazima Khairzad grew up believing in girl power in Afghanistan. Free from the reign of the Taliban, she picked up competitive skiing alongside males at a local club in Bamyan.
The young woman first learned the sport in 2015 through a foreign program aimed at empowering girls through athletics, and she fell in love with it. In 2020, after winning a bronze medal in an international race in Pakistan, she even had her eyes set on representing Afghanistan at the Olympics one day.
Over the last two weeks, Khairzad was glued to the winter games in Beijing, mesmerized by the speed and movement of world-class athletes, displayed on a TV screen in a safe house in Pakistan, where she has sought refuge from the returned Taliban while imagining a future in Canada.
“My biggest wish is to ski in the Olympics. I want to be a professional skier and make Afghanistan proud and show other girls it can be done,” the 21-year-old told the Star in an interview.
“I believe I can do it. My father has always said, ‘I don’t want you to marry someone and beg him for money. I want you to be on your own feet.’”
Khairzad made it out of Afghanistan last June with help from other skiers and supporters she’s met, just as Kabul was falling to the Taliban. Eva zu Beck, a Polish travel blogger who had Khairzad serve as her guide for outdoor adventure tours in Afghanistan, managed to fly her out to Islamabad through a temporary visa.
Jane Golubev of Calgary, also met the young woman through a tour; Golubev’s husband Igor Tesker then tried to help get her to Canada from Pakistan, where Khairzad is alone and could face repatriation to Afghanistan at any time, given her temporary status.
Khairzad, whose story as a skier had been featured in The Guardian and celebrated on the now-defunct Olympics website of the Afghan government, says her life is at risk under the Taliban both as an ethnic Hazara, a persecuted minority, and as a high-profile female athlete.
In October, Tesker and his wife applied for a Canadian temporary-residence permit for Khairzad, through an official invitation to have her visit here in order to explore her option of settling in the country with their full financial support.
They were hoping Canada would let her in and stay under one of the special resettlement measures Ottawa launched last summer for Afghans in need of protection. To date, 7,885 Afghan nationals have arrived in Canada toward the Liberal government’s 40,000 goal.
However, Khairzad’s application has been refused by the Canadian visa office in Abu Dhabi because the officer didn’t believe she would leave Canada at the end of her stay. The Calgary couple are appealing the decision before Canada’s Federal Court.
“We have a girl, obviously one of hundreds of thousands of Afghani people who found themselves in this terrible situation. But this is a clear case for me. Nazima as a female, minority athlete totally checks all the boxes to be eligible to relocate to Canada,” said Tesker, a businessman who traveled to Pakistan last week to visit the girl.
“We’ll take care of Nazima. Please let us bring her to Canada. We don’t need money. We don’t need grants. Just let us buy her tickets from her and she can have her life from her back.
Khairzad was born and raised in an era when Afghan girls like her were allowed to go to school to learn to read and write, and women were no longer required to be covered head to toe in burqas or accompanied by a male when outside the home. That was all thanks to the arrival of the western coalition forces, including Canada’s, that helped drive out the Taliban and rebuild a country ravaged by years of warfare.
Khairzad said her mother lost both parents to the Taliban and married at a young age, and has spent her whole life sewing and making bread to earn a living.
“I don’t think she knows of any other life she could have. She didn’t understand our desire to live differently,” said Khairzad, who finished high school last year and was planning to study computer science in Kabul.
“My mother couldn’t go to school. She wasn’t even allowed to go out. And I was able to play volleyball and soccer, and run.”
Calgary lawyer Raj Sharma said Tesker and Golubev could’ve applied to bring Khairzad to Canada under a private refugee sponsorship, but that process would take years, and getting the young woman a temporary-residence permit is the fastest way to get her out of harm’s way.
The permit is essentially a special permission by immigration officials for a foreign national to enter and stay in Canada under unique circumstances. Once in Canada, the person can then access different pathways to become a permanent resident, whether as an international student, foreign worker or asylum seeker.
“Part of the problem is the government seems to talk a lot but when it comes to walk the walk, it seems to be a little bit shy,” said Sharma, who represents Khairzad.
“Here’s a perfect opportunity for the government to give effect to its eloquent statements about the plight of some of the most vulnerable and those at risk as a result of dictatorial and despotic regimes.”
Tesker agrees.
“Nazima was a very simple village girl who got ‘brainwashed’ by us about the power of being female. If it did n’t happen, she would’ve been married with three kids by now, living in her village de ella and looking at the mountains while doing her housework, ”said Tesker.
“We, as the western world, came and showed her the other way of living, which is great. Now, her life de ella has changed and she wo n’t fit into that society anymore. With the Taliban around, she would be dead.”
The Star did not reach out to immigration officials, who have stopped commenting on specific Afghan cases out of safety and privacy concerns even with the person’s consent.
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