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Heart and Soul: My hijab or my sport

24/03/2023 GMT

My hijab or my sport

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, My hijab or my sport

Salimata faces a choice between her hijab and competing in the sport she loves

Salimata Sylla plays basketball and wears the hijab. But her sporting federation in France says she cannot do both when playing competitively.

It took Salimata Sylla three hours to get to the away fixture she was due to play with her basketball team mates from the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers. But it was only a few minutes before the match started that she learned she was going to sit the game out on the bench.

Despite playing for more than 10 years in the French Championship, the federation that controls her sport decided to apply the rule that forbids female basketball players from wearing the hijab. 

Her coach describes her as the backbone of the team and an ambassador for the sport. She has been a face of basketball for many big brands on social media. And the hijab she wears is sold by mainstream sportswear manufacturers. 

Salimata’s ban is the latest in country where the right to wear a hijab has long divided opinion. But in her case, it raises an interesting dilemma for France.

While domestic sporting federations enforce their ban on the hijab, their international counterparts have no such ban in place. So what will happen, Salimata wonders, when the Olympics come to Paris next year?

Reporter Claire Jones goes to Paris to meet Salimata to find out how she can resolve her wish to express her Muslim faith by wearing a hijab with her desire to play the sport she loves.

Presenter: Claire Jones
Location Producer: Léontine Gallois 
Producer: Helen Lee and Rob Cave 
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno

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