"The experience of 27.1% of athletes with disabilities, 34.6% of leaders, human rights violations..."For the human rights of all athletes X leaders"Sport Ethics Center Policy Forum Fever

Dec 04, 2024

Presenter and debaters shout fighting at the 2024 Sports Ethics Center Policy Forum held at the Olympic Parktel in Songpa-gu, Seoul on the 4th. From left, Hwang Seung-hyun, a professor at Kyungpook National University, Chung Yong-chul, a professor at Sogang University, Lee Dong-cheol, a senior researcher at the Korea Sports Science Institute, Park Ji-young, chairman of the Korea Sports Ethics Center, Lee Hyun-ok, former public relations cooperation officer at the Korea Sports Association for the Disabled, Hong Young-ok, coach for the Paris Olympic Shooting Team, Park Beom-jin, director of Next Studies, Jang Sun-woong, an education instructor at the Sports Ethics Center, Kim Woo-sang, a scholar at the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province Office of Education, and Lee Won-jae, a professor at Kookmin. Photo courtesy = Sports Ethics Center

"For the promotion of human rights of disabled-non-disabled athletes, leaders, referees, and all!"

The Sports Ethics Center under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism held a forum at the Olympic Parktel Athens Hall in Seoul at 2 p.m. on the 4th under the theme of 「Policy Tasks and Directions for Human Rights Promotion」.

Park Ji-young, Chairman of the Sports Ethics Center, said in his opening speech that "Today's forum is a place for policy development where people listen to the voices of the field and share expert opinions and discuss them based on the results of the survey conducted by the Sports Ethics Center and the human rights monitor project." delivered his pledge.

For the first time, Park Beom-jin, head of NextriSearch, announced the results of a survey on human rights and corruption of athletes with disabilities. According to a survey of 3,300 disabled athletes, 300 leaders, and 400 referees, 27.1% of athletes, 34.6% of leaders, and 20.6% of referees directly experienced human rights violations. The rate of sightings was higher at 39.1% for athletes, 43.1% for leaders, and 28.8% for referees. As for the degree of pain in human rights violations, the leader's mental pain was the greatest in the order of leader, player, and referee. In addition, 40% of the respondents responded to human rights violations. In the case of the players, there were many answers that they did not know what to do, and in the case of leaders and referees, there were many answers that they answered that they were afraid of retaliation, disadvantage, or that they would not be solved. Chung Yong-chul, a sports coaching professor at Sogang University's Graduate School of Education, made policy suggestions. Professor Chung said, `The issue of human rights of leaders has been coming up for four to five years, but it has not changed. The issue of player human rights continues to improve, but the big problem is that there is no change in the human rights of the leader,' he said. `We need continuous attention and improvement.' "The low rate of physical violence may be really low, or it may be increasingly advanced. We must continue to doubt it." "And in the case of 'I don't know well' that the players answered because of the reason for the stage response in case of human rights violations, they can educate, but in the case of the leader and the referee, I don't think they can do it."',' 'Fear of disadvantage, retaliation' is a structural problem. Fundamental changes in the culture of the sports world are needed rather than a 'enlightenment and education' surveillance and punishment' level approach. Without structural changes in the elite sports development system, long-term changes are hard to expect," he stressed.

Hwang Seung-hyun, a physical education professor at Kyungpook National University, then announced the results of an in-depth survey on human rights in sports. Through the Sports Ethics Center, he visited 50 teams that had completed disciplinary measures in person and conducted surveys and one-on-one interviews after sports mental coaching. As a result, 74.8% of the athletes said they felt that the overall culture improved and human rights were protected after the sports ethics center survey and disciplinary action, and 76.8% of the athletes said they felt that the human rights protection and culture of the team and the school improved. In the category of physical violence, more than 8 out of 10 said they feel human rights protection, beatings are almost gone, and 9 out of 10 said they feel protected from sexual violence. It's a positive result. Professor Hwang added, `To prevent secondary damage in the future, it is necessary to improve the system, such as disciplinary action for cases where the perpetrator can be moved to a higher team after dismissal, and to check not only human rights violations but also cultural changes within the team after investigation into corruption areas" gave an opinion. "We should continue to make improvement efforts, such as the provision of safety devices, for athletes who devote themselves to training in difficult environments such as the legislation of post-mortem surveys." he stressed.

Finally, Lee Won-jae, a professor of sports and industry leisure at Kookmin University, reported the results of the human rights watchdog project to understand the human rights situation of high school sports departments in Jeju. As a result of the survey, many leaders have high human rights sensitivity and have seen cases of improving the treatment of leaders by themselves through the operation of after-school sports programs. It was also revealed that the leader emphasized the importance of study and exercise, and provided equipment support to students so that they could concentrate on the sports they wanted," he said, introducing the positive. Concerning the direction of the human rights inspector system, concerns were raised about ensuring anonymity, but "Collecting cases through in-depth interviews that cannot be heard through simple questionnaires, including the leader's difficulties in the interview, qualitative surveys and solutions are derived." also suggested advantages. Professor Lee said, "In the future, human rights inspector projects need to be expanded nationwide, public relations for human rights inspector projects themselves, and training programs are needed to strengthen professionalism."Along with the opinion of ", the case of the IOC's security officer and welfare officer was also introduced.

In the following topic discussion, Lee Hyun-ok, former public relations cooperation officer of the Korea Sports Association for the Disabled, said in relation to the 'human rights of sports for the disabled', "Unlike sports for the non-disabled, the two areas of sports for the disabled' and 'human rights of the disabled' overlap. This requires a more delicate approach from the right to move and accessThe major inconveniences experienced by disabled athletes were reported as the right to move and access, as well as human rights violations of activity assistants. Not only physical approaches, but also universal design that emphasizes psychological and cognitive accessibility, and an environment that encompasses both the disabled and the non-disabled are important foundations for the development of sports for the disabled.

Lee Dong-cheol, a senior researcher at the Korea Sports Science Institute, said "When I first started mingling sports, there were many cases where non-disabled people were reluctant to do it. As we developed sports programs and discovered best practices together, we naturally socialized through improved awareness. "It is important to foster a culture of human rights violations and actively introduce and promote best practices. The Sports Ethics Center emphasized that a step-by-step approach is needed in policy such as prevention, safety devices, and follow-up management Kim Woo-sang, a scholar at the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province Office of Education, responded to the policy task for promoting human rights in sports "Jeju Island's population is 1% nationwide. There are about 1,700 athletes, including 1,000 athletes in the sports department. Shooting Oh Ye-jin is the first to produce an Olympic gold medalist on Jeju Island. "Over-emphasize the learning rights of recent student-athletes."It turns out that many people give up school. I think this is the most basic student human rightsAs the National Assembly plenary session passed some amendments to the National Sports Promotion Act, supplementary measures were prepared regarding the minimum education system. Welcome. Parents were even willing to sue over restricting participation in the tournament by law and depriving athletes of opportunities to challenge their dreams. I'm glad that the Ministry of Education is finding a way." "We signed an MOU with the Sports Ethics Center to protect the human rights of student athletes. "As the student-athletes talked to the human rights inspector this time, they felt that human rights were being protected. They view the activities of human rights inspectors positively. I think these players, who have been respected for human rights since they were young, will grow up to be good leaders."

Hong Young-ok, the coach of the Paris Olympic shooting team who raised Oh Ye-jin in Jeju, said "In terms of sports ethics viewed from the field" Training time is too short due to the guarantee of the right to learn". It's more quality than quantity. Other events may be different, but shooting is enough. It was an intensive training session for two to three hours. Even in the case of scolding, there was no emotional fight with the players because they explained the reason and communicated based on trust"When you look at it from the field, there are cases where players gather and attack the leader. I hope that the leaders' human rights blind spots will also be improved" did not forget to ask.

Jang Sun-woong, a former instructor specializing in education at the center, quoted Martin Luther King Jr. as saying in a statement that "'Development and dissemination of concrete and actionable witness intervention programs considering the specificity of the sports scene in Korea' that 'in the end, we will remember the silence of our friends, not what our enemy said' "As there are more witnesses to human rights violations, we need to actively utilize witnesses to create measures and systems that can provide practical help to victims." It is necessary to improve the culture of silence based on the sports community."

sky4us@sportschosun.com