9% of Disabled Athletes Experience Sexual Violence... "Discrimination and Rejection at Sports Facilities"

Source=National Human Rights Commission

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] It has been revealed that 1 in 10 disabled athletes have experienced sexual violence.

On the 13th, the National Human Rights Commission's Special Investigation Team on Sports Human Rights commissioned the Korea Women's Development Institute to conduct a survey of 1,554 disabled athletes from September to October last year.

According to the survey, 22.2% (excluding overlaps) of disabled athletes experienced 13 types of violence and abuse, including physical assault, verbal abuse, and humiliation. The highest response was having experienced threats, insults, or humiliating remarks (13.0%), followed by excessive training (10.4%), corporal punishment such as physical drills and punishment exercises (8.8%), and physical assault. Additionally, 1.5% reported being confined in empty spaces.

The experience of sexual violence was 9.2% (excluding overlaps), showing that disabled athletes are in a blind spot regarding sexual violence. Among these, verbal sexual harassment was 6.1%, visual sexual harassment 6.0%, physical sexual harassment including forced molestation and rape 5.7%, other sexual harassment 2.6%, and digital (online) sexual violence 0.8%. This level is high even compared to the 2019 special investigation team's survey results on sexual violence experiences in other fields (elementary school 2.4%, middle school 5.0%, high school 4.0%, university students 9.6%, adult athletes 11.4%).

The perpetrators of such violence and abuse were mostly 'coaches and directors' at 49.6%. Seniors accounted for 32.0%. Together, they make up about 82.0% of the total. A representative from the Korea Women's Development Institute, which conducted the research, stated, "Only 15.5% of victims sought help (such as reporting) from internal sports teams or external organizations, which is very low. About 36.0% of respondents cited fear of retaliation and concerns about negative impacts on their athletic careers as reasons for not seeking help." The Human Rights Commission pointed out, "Measures are needed to eradicate the structure of violence reproduction caused by hierarchical relationships between perpetrators and victims."

Furthermore, a significant number of athletes reported experiencing discrimination and denial of facility use due to their disabilities. Among disabled athletes, 56.9% used disabled-only sports facilities, 58.9% used national or local government public sports facilities, and 55.9% used private sports facilities for training or currently use them (multiple responses allowed). However, among users of disabled-only sports facilities, 35.7% responded that they found them inconvenient. The main reasons cited were a lack of disabled sports equipment and devices (33.5%) and insufficient convenience facilities such as shower rooms (25.3%).

The Human Rights Commission plans to share the seriousness of the issue through policy meetings and recommend policy improvement measures after joint review and consultation with experts, the Korea Paralympic Committee, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and other related organizations.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.