Sports Feature, 1st prize
I Just Want to Dunk
Jan Grarup
Laif
Laif
21 February, 2012
Young women risk their lives to play basketball in Somalia. Even though Somalia’s UN-backed government has regained control of Mogadishu, al-Qaeda-linked militants are still active in the city. Al-Shabaab and other radical Islamist groups consider women playing sport to be un-Islamic.
Jan Grarup
Grarup’s work reflects his belief in photojournalism’s role as an instrument of witness and memory to incite change, and the necessity of telling the stories of people who are re...
Mogadishu, Somalia
Members of a women’s basketball team in Mogadishu have to exercise extreme discretion. They go veiled and conservatively dressed in public, and carry basketballs deep inside their bags.
Young women risk their lives to play basketball in Somalia. Even though Somalia’s UN-backed government has regained control of the capital Mogadishu, al-Qaeda-linked militants are still active in the city. Al-Shabaab and other radical Islamist groups consider women playing sport to be un-Islamic.
In 2006, the Somali Islamic Courts Union, a group of Sharia courts, issued an order banning women from playing all sport. One of the proposed punishments for women playing basketball is to cut off the right hand or left foot. Members of the Somali national women’s basketball team have received death threats.
Through our education programs, the World Press Photo Foundation encourages diverse accounts of the world that present stories with different perspectives.
Our exhibitions showcase stories that make people stop, feel, think and act to a worldwide audience.
Our annual contest recognizes and rewards the best in photojournalism and documentary photography.
