NEED FOR ANTI-HARASSMENT POLICY IN SPORTS
PREVALANCE OF ABUSE AND HARASSMENT IN SPORTS
The field of Sports is one of the most pioneer industries for any country. Sports provide a platform for young citizens to become professionals, represent and bring laurels to their country. Sports, while teaching children innumerable life skills, has an immense professional value addition to the global economy through generation of revenue through events, merchandise, and broadcasting rights. But the sporting industry is not immune to challenges of abuse and harassment suffered by various stakeholders especially athletes. In fact, being a male dominated sports industry, women and even children, be it male or female, have to often face abuse and harassment at the hands of predatory male coaches and administrators.
Abuse in sports encompasses a wide range of harmful behaviours, manifesting in the form of sexual, physical, psychological, economic, online, and even subtle forms such as bullying and microaggressions.[2]. Women athletes and children are placed at a higher risk of sexual harassment in sports. Factors such as unquestionable compliance with coaching methods, long training periods away from public eye, and supervision that discourages individual judgment are all responsible for this increased risk that make women athletes a vulnerable minority.[3] Young girls and boys often spend several days away from home on camps and tournaments. Sometimes they have women coaches with them, but the ground reality is that many women coaches or support staff have families, and are not willing to go on outstation assignments exposing young children to majorly male dominated staff.[4]
At sporting events, there is not only a need for competent coaching, but also a need for essential recovery support, including services such as massage specialists and physiotherapists for injury treatment and proper recovery of the athletes. Due to lack of sports scientists, coaches occasionally assume the responsibility of aiding in athlete recovery. However, this dynamic has raised concerns related to Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO), affecting both coaches and athletes. It has been observed that coaches, too, experience discomfort due to the threat of potential complaints. This unease stems from the apprehension that athletes dissatisfied with their coaching experience might file complaints against them.
Moreover, a distinctive challenge emanates in contact games such as Wrestling, Boxing, Judo, Taekwondo, Karate, Kabaddi, Kho-Kho and Wushu which involve physical contact of the players. In such contact games, there arises a possibility of intentional acts of physical harm directed towards sports persons. It includes any form of physical assault like hitting, punching, kicking etc by coaches, trainers or any other person in position of authority. Numerous forms of violence in sports are implicitly accepted or normalised as a result of the ‘win/lose’ structure of sports and a culture that idolises athletes. This is especially true of contact sports because of how physically demanding they are and how the athlete’s body is treated as essential “equipment.”[5]
REPORTED INCIDENTS OF SEXUAL ABUSE AND HARASSMENT
In the last decade, it has been reported that at least 45 complaints of sexual harassment were reported at 24 different government-run sports institutes. [6] According to the data, 29 of the 45 cases reported are against coaches. Some of these incidents are stated below:
- In 2022, an Indian cyclist filed a complaint with the Sports Authority of India (SAI). The cyclist has accused their coach, R K Sharma, of sexual harassment in Slovenia in May 2022. The complaint details the sexual advancements and outrageous comments made by the coach. According to the complaint, the coach forced himself into the cyclist’s room, suggested giving her a post-training massage, offered her to sleep with him, and become his wife because she did not have a future in sports. Both SAI and the Cycling Federation of India (CFI) have created a panel to investigate the charges.
- On 29 Dec 2022, a junior coach accused Haryana sports minister Sandeep Singh of sexual harassment. Chandigarh Police booked Haryana sports minister Sandeep Singh on charges of sexual harassment and wrongful confinement on the complaint of a woman coach. Sandeep Singh gave up his portfolio on January 1, 2023.[7]
- In January 2023, 30 Indian wrestlers, including Olympic medalists, organised a sit-in, accusing the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and its coaches of sexual harassment. The protests were called off after the government promised a fair investigation. However, in April 2023, the wrestlers resumed their protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi because of dissatisfaction with the investigation conducted by the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), established under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act (POSH) 2013, as the investigation report was not made public. They demanded the arrest of the WFI president, claiming that the harassment had persisted since 2012. After the initial refusal, the Delhi Police filed a first information report (FIR) following a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court. [8]
APPLICATION OF POSH ACT AT SPORTS INSTITUTES
The term ‘workplace’ in the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) (PoSH) Act, 2013 is broadly defined and also liberally interpreted by the judiciary. According to Section 2(o)(iv) of the Act, “any sports institute, stadium, sports complex or competitions or games venue, whether residential or not used for training, sports or other activities relating thereto” is a workplace.
The workplace is the Act’s central term. The terms ‘employer’ (Section 2(g)) and ‘employee’ (Section 2(f)) are defined in relation to it. An employer is a person in charge of the “management, supervision, and control” of the workplace. The employer is liable to form an Internal Committee (IC) for the workplace.
India’s various sports federations and other governing bodies are employers in relation to sports facilities, venues for competitions and events, hostels, and games villages, to name a few workplaces in sports. Therefore, as per the law, these employers are obligated to establish an IC to investigate and inquire into sexual harassment allegations made by athletes and sportspersons.[9]
NEED FOR HOLISTIC ANTI-HARASSMENT POLICY
It is the responsibility of the sports organisations to ensure that no sports persons who are involved in their sport are subject to any abuse, sexual misconduct, harassment or unlawful discrimination. One such example is an initiative taken by Athletics Federation of India. In 2023, AFI has notified a document titled, ‘Safeguarding Athletes from Harassment & Abuse in Sports (SAHAS)’, a policy for safeguarding athletes through SAHAS Committee, a complaint mechanism and an inquiry process. [10]
There are certain suggestions for the framing of holistic anti-harassment policy which must be adopted by every sports organization. They are as below:
- Make it mandatory for all sports institutions to have safeguarding policies and procedures in place, including the undertaking of background checks of any individuals working with children in sport.
- Develop victim-centred frameworks that facilitate reporting of abuse cases and protect reporting persons, witnesses and victims.
- Enhancing governance, transparency and accountability mechanisms to promote integrity and to effectively tackle abuse in sport, including by creating diverse and inclusive power structures. More women must be included in the administrative positions as they are expected to take strict actions against the perpetrators more effectively than male administrators.
- Establishing sufficient internal controls to assist in preventing and detecting acts of abuse in sport, ensuring that confidentiality and anonymity requirements to protect reporting persons and victims are met, and requiring periodic reporting and independent auditing of those sports organizations that receive public funds. [11]
- Seats for women coaches must be reserved who can play a pivotal role in creating a safe and comfortable space, particularly during outstation tours and in athletes' recovery sessions.
[3] Ungender, ‘Sexual Harassment in Sports in India’, July 8, 2022, accessible at https://www.ungender.in/sexual-harassment-in-sports-in-india/.
[4] Akshay Sawai, Outlook India, ‘Sexual Harassment: The Chronic Illness of Indian Sport’, April 26, 2023, accessible at https://www.outlookindia.com/sports/sexual-harassment-the-chronic-illness-of-indian-sport-news-281578
[5] Arya Bhatt, IP & Legal Filing, ‘The Legal and Ethical Implications of Gender discrimination and sexual harassment in sports’, December 22, 2023, accessible at https://www.ipandlegalfilings.com/the-legal-and-ethical-implications-of-gender-discrimination-and-sexual-harassment-in-sports-with-focus-on-indias-sports-industry/#_ftn6.
[6] Mihir Vasavda, The Indian Express, ’10-year record at SAI: 45 complaints of sexual harassment, 29 against coaches’, January 16, 2020 accessible at https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/10-year-record-at-sai-45-complaints-of-sexual-harassment-29-against-coaches/.
[7]Dolly Chingakham, India Today, ‘Actions taken in sportspersons’ sexual harassment allegations in India’, January 20, 2023, accessible at https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/actions-taken-in-sexual-harassment-allegations-by-sportspersons-in-india-2324194-2023-01-20.
[8]Shaun Star and Trusha Modi, Economic and Political Weekly, ‘From Allegations to Action’, January 20, 2024, accessible at https://www.epw.in/journal/2023/48/commentary/allegations-action.html#:~:text=In%20India,%20a%20total%20of,official%20records%20(Vasavda%202020).
[9] Supra 3.
[10] Accessible at https://indianathletics.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Sahas-Policy-Document.pdf.
[11]United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Report on Corruption in Sport- Corruption and Abuse in Sport accessible at https://www.unodc.org/res/safeguardingsport/grcs/section-7_html/SPORTS_CORRUPTION_2021_S7.pdf.
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