NHRCK To Investigate Sexual Violence in Sports
A recent broadcast news report on sexual violence in the sports world shocked and angered the Korean public. It vividly showed the harsh reality where many young student and adult female athletes are being exposed to physical and sexual violence on a daily basis. This situation was noted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) in December 2007, when it recommended the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development and the Korea Sports Council to implement specific measures aimed at protecting and promoting student athletes’ human rights.
The NHRCK decided to step up its efforts to protect and uphold the human rights of student athletes and female athletes in 2008. In particular, the NHRCK determined that substantive measures should be devised so that the government may prevent and eradicate the sexual violence now rampant in the entire sports world, including school sports. It intends to investigate the current situation in detail and to begin a review of related policies, institutions, and practices, while urging the government and the sports community to resolutely affirm their determination to make improvements.
To improve the human rights conditions of student athletes and normalize school sports policies, the NHRCK decided to (i) hold a series of debates promoting student athletes’ human rights, specifically with regard to ending sexual violence against student athletes; (ii) investigate the human rights conditions for student athletes who quit their teams; (iii) study school sports policies and human rights status in sports in advanced foreign countries; and (iv) wage a nation-wide campaign to improve the human rights conditions of student athletes.
The severity of sexual violence in the sports world as exposed by the latest report requires immediate action. In order to deter and root out sexual violence against student athletes, the NHRCK will begin examining the current status and consider possible counter-measures.
Makeshifts can hardly resolve this structural problem fundamentally. For the last several decades, every call for human dignity and the minimum human rights of student and adult female athletes came to naught under the excessive emphasis on winning in government sports policies. Accordingly, the government and sports authorities need to take responsible actions: they need to boldly reform national sports policies, institutions, practices, and culture.
In 2006, the NHRCK carried out a human rights fact-finding investigation for student athletes in primary schools. It ascertained the severity of violations of student athletes' learning rights as well as physical and sexual violence against them. In the investigation, 111 (14.9%) out of 746 primary school student athletes who responded to a questionnaire said that they experienced sexual harassment, sending a shock to Korean society.
