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Get the latest news and updates from our partners on the human rights issues in and around the world of sport.
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Indiana Lawmakers are Making Life Worse for LGBTQ Youth
This month, lawmakers in Indiana voted to advance a bill that would prohibit transgender girls from playing sports with other girls. This discriminatory and harmful bill quickly gained traction even though there doesn’t seem to be any issue in Indiana with transgender girls participating in athletics. Efforts to bar transgender girls from participating in school sports […]
Beijing turned female Olympians into objects of nationalism, while Chinese women suffer
There was something deeply discomfiting about the 2022 Beijing Olympics – and it wasn’t just that the festivities covered up severe human rights abuses, including crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the erasure of fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong. As I watched how female athletes have been perceived and how their narratives have […]
World Players Association Statement on Global Sport’s Response to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Nyon, Switzerland, 28 February 2022 The World Players Association stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and athletes, player associations, civil society and peaceful people everywhere in unequivocally condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s actions represent not only an attack on a sovereign state, but on the fundamental values of the international community including human rights, […]
China: Olympian’s Gold Medal Gesture Sets Example to Governments Everywhere
Olympic champion Nils van der Poel has set an example to world leaders by giving away his Beijing 2022 gold medal in protest at human rights violations in China. The Swedish athlete handed the men’s 10,000m speed skating medal he won at this month’s Games to Angela Gui, whose father Gui Minhai is a bookseller […]
China: Censorship Mars Beijing Olympics
IOC, Sponsors’ Inaction Enables Restrictions on Athletes, Journalists (New York) – Chinese government censorship seriously marred the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which close on February 20, 2022, Human Rights Watch said today. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and corporate sponsors have not spoken out about the government’s human rights record or used their leverage to press for rights […]
Beijing: Letter to IOC President Requests Urgent Human Rights Reform
(Nyon, Switzerland, February 18, 2022) — The International Olympic Committee (IOC) must act now to ensure the human rights catastrophe of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics never happens again, the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) said today. In a letter to IOC President Thomas Bach, the SRA stated that “the IOC cannot simply return to […]
China: IOC Can’t Ensure Olympic Apparel Is Abuse-Free
Supplier Audits Lacked Transparency, Don’t Answer Key Questions (New York) – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not conduct adequate human rights due diligence to address the risk that Olympic uniforms and other products for the Beijing Winter Games aren’t linked to grave rights violations in China’s Uyghur region, the Coalition to End Forced Labour in […]
France: Prefecture of Police Tries to Suppress Women Footballers’ Protest against Lawmakers’ Latest Attempt to Undermine Muslim Women in Sport
An Administrative Tribunal appeal decision issued on 9 February overturned the Paris Prefecture of Police’s ban on a protest organised by women footballers, confirming that the protest should have been able to proceed as planned. The protest organizers had already called off the event in light of the police ban and the Tribunal’s ruling came […]
France: New Law Compels Reform of Football Policy that Discriminates against Muslim Women
On 24 February France adopted a new law aimed at democratising access to sports. A group of Senateurs ultimately failed in their repeated attempts to introduce a discriminatory amendment intended to prohibit women who choose to wear headscarves from participating in all sporting competitions and events organized by state-regulated sports federations and their associate organizations. […]
TAOS Statement on Recent Reports of Abuse in Dance Community
The Army of Survivors has issued the following statement on the recent reports of abuse coming out of the dance community. The floodgates have opened in the wake of the October 2021 Toronto Star article exposing the deep-seeded history of abuse within the dance community, with Break the Floor Productions at the center of the story. Since […]
Global Sport Industry Worth Billions: Players and Athletes Fail to Receive Their Fair Share
On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, one of the biggest unpaid sports events on the planet, a new report published today by the World Players Association shows that athletes and players continue to be denied a fair share of the wealth they generate and are excluded from the decision-making table. The World Player’s report, […]
Peng Shuai: International Olympic Committee should center its responsibility to protect athletes
(Nyon, Switzerland, January 31, 2022) – International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach first spoke with Chinese tennis player and three-time Olympian Peng Shuai at a time when no one outside China had been able to make contact. Unfortunately, the danger of her situation has been downplayed, and Bach did not mention Peng’s allegations of […]