Women Of Afghanistan Won't Give Up Their Soccer Dreams

It's the championship of the Afghan women's soccer league in the capital, and the Herat Storm is facing off against the Kabul Fortress. This is a conservative country, and the players sprint across the field in long-sleeved shirts, and leggings under their baggy shorts. Black hoodie-style hijabs cover their hair.

Men and boys clump in one bunch of seats; women and girls in another, but they're feisty: hollering, hooting and banging on drums as the players kick goals.

Despite the conservative clothes and the gender segregation, this scene on a crisp fall day in mid-October was once unthinkable. It took the Taliban being toppled and nearly two decades of activism to get here.

It's even more remarkable that the women are playing in this Kabul stadium. This is where the Taliban once meted out punishments to men and women who who violated their strict rules. The punishments were so gruesome that when the stadium was renovated in 2007, contractors removed about two feet of soil to ensure people didn't play on the remains of other Afghans.