Empower Girls in India Through Sports

It’s My Body: Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Adolescent Girls through Sports

A community-based program led by CREA and co-implemented with 12 partner CBOs in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

My name is Reena (name changed), I am 15 years old and live in Jharkhand. I told my mother that how playing football has changed the way I think about women and girls. Like others, I also used to think that girls can’t play football, they are physically weak and their place is inside the house. But the training sessions and playing football has made me think about other side of the sprectrum which nobody has spoken about before – why girls only have to do the household work? Why boys do not contribute to it? Why we are not allowed to go out without permission and boys do not have to worry about it? If we do not get the chance how will we know our potentiality?

I have started thinking about these and have been discussing these questions with my mother. I have asked my mother why she doesn’t ask my brother to do household work. I have given her examples of players and coaches from IMB. My mother has started thinking about these questions as well. Though I still have to do the household work, but now my mother let me go out to play football. I see this as a first step to bring change and hope one day it would not be a struggle for me to excess public place.”    

Like Reena, many girls who are part of It’s My Body (IMB) program have continued to demonstrate confidence by questioning and having conversations with their family and community members to negotiate for their rights. During this quarter, IMB focused primarily on strengthening leadership skills of girls by providing platforms to demonstrate their skills and confidence. CREA and its partner organisations have worked towards this by providing continuous support to the girls to take initiatives in their communities.

During their participation in residential trainings to build their leadership early this year, the girls identified gender discrimination as a crucial issue which they (girls) face in their communities. They reflected that it leads to no or very less access to opportunities for them and prevents them from making choices and decisions in their lives. They decided to take their learnings to other girls and to work on this issue by creating awareness on gender discrimination through sports.

In order to break the stereotype of gender and sports, girls have started playing football. They have reached out to the girls who did not participate in playing football by talking to them and their parents to share their experiences and journeys. The girls took part in a football match organised in their area and shared how they had overcome their own baises about playing in public, running freely and wearing clothes of their choice. Earlier when adolescent girls would go to play football in shorts and t-shirts, the boys in the community would make abusive remarks:

"Tum log ladke nahi ho, tum log itne chhote kapde kaise pahan sakti ho?" (You are not boys. How can you wear such short clothes?).

Elderly members of their community also had problems with this and would criticise their parents, which used to end up in restrictions being imposed on girls on their clothing and mobility. The only alternatives that these girls saw initially was to play football wearing salwar kameez (traditional dress which covers their body almost 90%). But now they have realised that it is their right to decide the kind of clothes they want to wear and have started negotiating with their parents and other community members.

Through these initiatives they have started believing in themselves and have become more confident to advocate for their rights.

“Now I have started taking a leadership role in my community. Earlier we (girls) didn’t talk about our own rights; we used to do whatever we were told to do. But now if we are stopped from going to school or playing with friends, we talk to our parents and convince them so that they do not stop us from going to school or playing with our friends. We also now take small decisions at our end.” – IMB girl from Uttar Pradesh.