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August 11, 2023
UN Women – the United Nations entity championing gender equality and the empowerment of women – recently released ‘Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport: A Handbook for Policymakers and Sports Practitioners.’ Developed in partnership with the global Spotlight Initiative, the world’s largest targeted effort to end all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), the guide intends to facilitate conversations on how everyone can work together to address VAWG in sport.
VAWG continues to be one of the world’s most pervasive human rights violations, with one in three women affected. UN Women notes that this is rooted in gender inequality, discrimination and harmful cultural and social norms that emphasize men’s superiority over women and normalize violence toward women.
In sports, women and girls face particular risks that are combined with ineffective or inexistent prevention and response mechanisms. 21% of women and girls, as compared to 11% of men and boys, experience a form of sexual abuse at least once as a child in sports. Across the globe, police reports of domestic violence rise during mega-sporting events such as the World Cup – in some communities increasing by more than a third. Additionally, women athletes were the targets of 87% of all abusive Twitter posts during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
“Sport brings tremendous opportunities to advance gender equality, but also carries risks for women and girls,” said Jennifer Cooper, Global Sports Lead at UN Women. “This Handbook, which UN Women is proud to have published in partnership with UNESCO, is a comprehensive and practical tool for policymakers and practitioners from sport and development around the globe. We hope it will be useful for the many advocates and allies ready to make sport a place in and through which women and girls can thrive.”
The handbook, intended for sports practitioners, policymakers, sports journalists and civil society, aims to create a shared understanding of the problem, offer practical tools for addressing VAWG in sport and proposes areas for effective collaboration. The goal is to facilitate informed and constructive conversations about how people can work together to address the issue.
It includes recommendations and toolkits for policies in sport and shares best practices, which include building foundational trust, local resources for survivors, and training and support for coaches and staff working with youth. Also present are facts on the prevelance and scope of the issue, testimonies from survivors and case studies on preventing violence, protecting survivors and ending impunity for perpetrators.
“The conversation around gender equity and sport has evolved significantly in recent years. There is a greater awareness that change must happen, but this is a complex space that requires some carefully considered solutions. The Handbook examines the challenges faced on a local and global scale and draws inspiration from research and initiatives around the world to offer tangible steps forward,” explains Kat Craig, co-author of the Handbook and global safe sport expert. Craig also sits on the Expert Advisory Group of Beyond Sport’s Sport Together Fund.
Sport is closing gender gaps on multiple fronts: women’s pay is starting to increase in certain areas, new programs are building pipelines for women into leadership roles, ground-breaking precedents have been set thanks to courageous survivors of abuse, women’s sporting events have seen record attendances and coverage and male allies are using their sporting platforms to challenge gender inequality and call for an end to VAWG. By working together, there is enormous potential to drive gender equality and improve the well-being of women and girls.
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