Key NHRCK Activities
■ Factual survey on human rights conditions facing professional women athletes
and competitions abroad
In 2020, the Commission commissioned a survey to understand the human rights conditions facing
women who are either student athletes or coaches. The effort was designed to extend discussions
on the rights of women athletes who often find themselves excluded from male-centered culture in
sports, break the glass ceiling in sports through changes in laws and policies, and encourage active
engagement to promote human rights, gender equality, and gender sensitivity.
Human rights violations caused by (sexual) violence against sports athletes have long been an
enduring problem. Though various solutions had been proposed, their effects have been limited
so far. The Commission conducted a study to understand what kind of advanced institutional
understanding what other countries are doing to prevent violence and sexual violence in sports,
Part 2
arrangements other countries have to promote human rights in sports. The study was aimed at
what their investigation, remedies, protection of victims look like, and how their lessons learned
can be more effective in protecting our sports community.
■ On-site inspections at major sporting competitions to prevent human rights
violations
While the COVID-19 situation resulted in cancellation of most national sports competition,
those that were not canceled were held without spectators and without external monitoring.
For this reason, the Commission had on-site inspections in four sporting events ‒ swimming
(16th Swimming Competition for the Up and Rising), baseball (U-15 National Youth Baseball
Competition), tennis (75th Korea Tennis Competition), and gymnastics (75th National Gymnastics
Competition) ‒ to examine safety of facilities, monitor verbal violence, physical violence, and
sexual violence, and help prevent incidents. The special inspection team also developed and
disseminated an inclusive monitoring checklist to ensure that the sports community continue
self-monitoring efforts. Meanwhile, it will continue to engage with the Korean Sport & Olympic
Committee and other stakeholders, and present improvement guidelines to eradicate human rights
violations and authoritative culture in sports.
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Key NHRCK
Activities
can be applied to our own legal and institutional system, so that our legal and institutional system