From Iran to France, how Sadaf Khadem became a boxer and champion of women’s rights
Iranian is now a personal trainer who lives in southern France, but her heart remains united with the female struggle in her home country
From basketball to boxing, and then to personal training, Sadaf Khadem has taken an unorthodox route in the world of sport.
It is a strange journey geographically too, beginning in the Iranian capital of Tehran and ending in the coastal village of Royan in southern France.
As a student Khadem majored in physics and mathematics, but decided to pursue a sporty path that resulted in her becoming a personal trainer, traveling to Dubai at the age of 20 to obtain a coaching certificate from the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness.
Now 27, Khadem is a personal trainer, studies commerce and has recently founded her own clothing line. But it has not been an easy journey for Khadem, who faced many obstacles while concentrating on sport.
The first was finding a boxing instructor and a location to train. A three-hour round trip sorted that one out.
Then there was the issue of no boxing federation for women existing in Iran to regulate the sport.
She said: “A lot of men train with women without any regulations set by any organization, and there is a lot of violence. In France or other countries, there is a federation that regulates things so it is more difficult to commit violent acts, but that’s not the case in Iran.”
Khadem told Arab News that after a bad experience with her first boxing coach in Iran, she stopped the sport for a year. She then resumed with the coach of the Iranian national team.
In 2019 she became the first female boxer from Iran to fight in France.
She added: “After training with the Iranian national team coach, I searched everywhere in order to participate in a boxing match. I tried Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and, in the end, I sent a message on Instagram to coach Mahyar Monshipour and asked him if he could organize an official match and he agreed.
“I knew that it would be important because I was the first female boxer who wanted to participate in an official amateur boxing match. I knew that a lot of media outlets would want to cover the event, but I did not imagine it would be that big.”
Eventually Khadem moved to France with the help of Monshiphour, a French Iranian former World Boxing Association champion.
She succeeded in taking part in her first official bout abroad, but ever since has had difficulties returning to Iran.
French laws meant she had to remove her hijab during fights, which led to her receiving threats from the Iranian regime, hastening her decision to live in forced exile in France. She has since decided to stay in the country voluntarily.