WASHINGTON — As a young teenager in Kabul, Afghanistan, Hajar Abulfazl occasionally took an unconventional route to soccer practice.

It wasn’t down a street or through a neighborhood that might have taken her on a scenic path instead of a quick one. It was through an open window.

Abulfazl had to sneak out of the house to play soccer because her uncle had come over and was blocking the front door. He was there often, to tell her to stop playing sports.

“He’d say, ‘Hajar, it’s against Islam for a girl to do that, you can’t do that,’ ” said Abulfazl, who works at Child Advocacy and Women’s Rights International, a nonprofit organization based in Washington. “He’d say, ‘If you keep playing, you’re not going to find a husband. And if you do find one, think of your children, how shamed they would be, think of your sons.’ Think of your family. When you play, you’re hurting all of us.’ ”