No More Violence

Time to Ensure Human Rights for Teen Athletes

It is shocking that most teen athletes are forced to endure various types of violence from their coaches and seniors. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea said Monday that nearly eight out of every 10 athletes in middle and high schools were victims of violence. Of these, 25 percent said they used to tolerate physical violence once or twice a week, while 5 percent said they were beaten everyday.

The findings were based on a survey of 1,139 male and female teen athletes. More shocking was that 63.8 percent of the respondents said they have experienced sexual harassment, either physically or verbally. One-and-a-half percent said they were forced to have sex with their coaches or colleagues. The survey highlights the misery of young athletes, who have allegedly long been subject to violence and sexual harassment.

Education policymakers and school authorities must no longer overlook these serious violations of the human rights of student athletes. It is high time for the nation to overhaul the outdated method of training young athletes. As shown by the survey, violence tends to form a vicious cycle in which coaches beat athletes who do the same to their juniors in anger.

More serious is that most victims did not report these crimes out of fear that doing so would adversely affect their athletic careers. Even teachers and school authorities were not willing to take disciplinary action against coaches for their alleged violence or harassment after victims did report the incidents.

All the concerned parties ought to realize that violence can never be justified under any circumstances. It goes without saying that any form of violence or sexual harassment is detrimental to the education of young students _ no matter if they are athletes or not. Parents, teachers, coaches and students should no longer hold the long-held misconception that violence can be tolerable because it is part of training or education.

In particular, we have to recognize that violence and sexual harassment constitute grave crimes against humanity that bring about intractable trauma to young students. There is no doubt that such criminal acts wreak havoc on children's personalities.

South Korea boasts world-class young athletes, including swimmer Park Tae-hwan and skater Kim Yu-na. However, we have cannot but ask a question: Is their athletic glory the result of hard training beset with different types of violence and sexual harassment? We definitely hope not.

It is important to bring hopes and dreams to young athletes instead of despair and misery, because they are the future of the country's sports. Therefore, we have to make all-out efforts to enable them to realize the true spirit of sportsmanship, which can never be promoted by violence and harassment. Let's act now to reform the anachronistic way of cultivating a sporting elite.