Kim Kardashian Helped Afghan Girls
Women playing sports was seen as a political act of defiance against the Taliban, and hundreds of female athletes have left Afghanistan since the group returned to power.
Australia evacuated the members of Afghanistan’s national women’s soccer team, and the youth girls’ team was resettled in Portugal.
Members of Afghanistan’s women’s youth development soccer team arrived in Britain early Thursday after being flown from Pakistan with the help of a New York rabbi, a UK soccer club and Kim Kardashian West.
A plane chartered by the reality star and carrying more than 30 teenage players and their families, about 130 people in all, landed at Stansted Airport near London. The Afghans will spend 10 days in coronavirus quarantine before starting new lives in Britain.
Britain and other countries evacuated thousands of Afghans in a rushed airlift as Kabul fell to the Taliban in August. Many more people have since left overland for neighbouring countries in hopes of traveling on to the West.
The group’s founder, Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, has worked with reality TV star Kardashian West on criminal justice reform in the US. He reached out to her to help pay for a chartered plane to the UK.
“Maybe an hour later, after the Zoom call, I got a text message that Kim wants to fund the entire flight,” Margaretten said.
Kardashian West’s spokeswoman confirmed that the star and her brand SKIMs had chartered the flight.
