India, March 6 -- "As a 14-year-old, I was kicking away my worries for hours every day," says Marzieh Hamidi. "I forgot the world when I was at the gym."

At 23, the Afghani-Iranian taekwondo champion and women's rights advocate has turned the sport into a lifeline, a way to process discrimination, exile, death threats and her quest for freedom.

Two weeks ago, she was awarded the International Women's Rights Award by the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. Hamidi dedicated it to the women of Afghanistan and the protesters in Iran. She has lived on both sides of that border.

Hamidi's parents fled Afghanistan in 2000, to escape the Taliban regime, and sought refuge across the border in Iran. Marzieh was born there in November 20...