No.48 September 2006 |
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Abstract
This article notes the renewed international interest in human rights
and addresses the ways in which human rights may be achieved in and
through sport. Three overlapping sections deal with: (a) the use of
sports to achieve human rights, focusing specifically on the anti-apartheid
movement; (b) the right to participate in sports; and (c) the rights
of specific classes of persons, which often combine ideas about the
right to participate with ideas about the use of sport in the more general
achievement of human rights. The latter section addresses women’s
rights, aboriginal rights, disability rights, rights associated with
those living in poverty, racial minorities, sexual orientation and,
in the case of sport, athletes’ and workers’ rights. The
article concludes by noting the need to determine how to make the right
to participate in sport more widely available and the need to determine
the circumstances under which participation in sport might assist in
the struggle to achieve human rights. Introduction
Following a period of stagnation, when United Nations (UN) actions
on human rights were limited and spending for human rights was only
1% of the total UN budget, there has been a recent revival of interest
in the issue of human rights. For example, the new United Nations (UN)
Human Rights Council has finally been established to replace the problematic
and ineffective UN Human Rights Commission; the second World Forum on
Human Rights was recently (2006) held in France to mark the 40th and
30th anniversaries respectively of the International Covenants on Civil
and Political Rights, and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and,
perhaps most significantly, the UN established the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The MDGs represent a renewed commitment to achieving many
of the human rights first outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration
on Human Rights, establishing a timetable (2015) for the realization
of these eight Goals:
As noted subsequently, sport has become involved in the achievement
of the MDGs.
“Human rights are literally the rights one has because one is
a human being,” (Donnelly, 1989, p. 9), and represent the difference
between “a life” and “a life of dignity” (p.
17). Barnes’ more legal definition suggests that, “A ‘right’
is a just claim or recognized interest; it is a moral or legal entitlement
that others are duty-bound to respect” (1996, p. 47). Thus, the
realization of rights produces responsibilities for others, a situation
that often involves politics and tensions. In addition to the general
notion of human rights, rights have also come to be associated with
classes of persons – people who, because of their subordinate
status in the social structures and material conditions of their societies,
have not achieved equal rights. Thus, there has been increased focus
on, for example, children’s rights, women’s rights, aboriginal
rights, disability rights and rights associated with those living in
poverty, with racial minorities (sometimes a misnomer in countries such
as South Africa), with sexual orientation and, in the case of sport,
athletes’ rights.
Human Rights and Sports
Although the relationship between sport and human rights has only in
recent years been considered a topic of research interest, it is important
to note that human rights are continually and routinely violated in
ways directly or indirectly related to sports. In order to address the
various ways in which human rights may be achieved in and through sports,
the following is organized into three overlapping sections: (a) the
use of sports to achieve human rights; (b) the right to participate
in sports; and (c) the rights of specific classes of persons, which
often combine ideas about the right to participate with ideas about
the use of sport in the more general achievement of human rights.
The achievement of human rights through sport
Although the response of the sport and physical education communities
to the MDGs indicates a widespread belief in the possibility of sport
being used to achieve human rights (see below), there is only one major
example of a human rights campaign where sport is widely acknowledged
to have been involved in its success, namely, the anti-apartheid movement
in South Africa.
White supremacist governments in South Africa began to implement apartheid
policies in 1948, relegating non-whites to second class including a
ban from participation on national sports teams (and an attempt to ensure
no non-whites competed on teams from other countries that came to South
Africa). International concern in the sporting communities was slow
to develop, sport organizations generally accepting the principle that
‘sport and politics should be separate’. The first anti-apartheid
step taken by a sport organization was in 1956 when the International
Table Tennis Federation replaced the all-white South African Table Tennis
Union with the non-racial South African Table Tennis Board (SATTB).
However, SATTB players were not permitted to travel to represent South
Africa, having had their passports confiscated by the South African
government (ANC, 1971).
In 1965, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (CERD) gave moral and legal force to campaigns against
apartheid and apartheid sport. The anti-apartheid campaigns increasingly
gained the world’s attention, creating growing isolation of South
Africa. Governments, civil society organizations and countries who continued
to compete against white South African teams all combined to increasingly
isolate South Africa from sporting contacts with other nations. Anti-apartheid
leaders relied heavily on the moral and legal authority of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights and CERD, which was binding upon all signatory
governments. The United Nations was a continuing source of strength
in the struggle against apartheid (cf., Guelke, 1993; Kidd, 1991).
It finally became impossible for Commonwealth leaders, who were responsible
for reporting their progress on CERD, and who were developing their
own post-colonial racial equity initiatives, to ignore the apartheid
policies of one of its members, or to ignore the growing campaign to
isolate South Africa from international sport. In 1977, they signed
the Gleneagles Agreement on Sporting Contacts with South Africa, and
by 1985, with the signing of the International Convention against Apartheid
in Sport (UN Human Rights Commission), no country played South Africa
in any major sport (cf., Hain, 1971; Thompson, 1988). It is possible
to imagine the symbolic message delivered if no one played against your
national team in any major sport, especially when some of your athletes
and teams are among the best in the world. While many other political
and economic measures were taken in the 40 year campaign against apartheid,
it is widely acknowledged that the sporting isolation and condemnation
of South Africa played an important role in ending apartheid during
the years 1989-1994.
The right to participate in sport
Modern sports were developed in the 19th century as socialization and
pleasure for imperial upper-class males (Kidd &Donnelly, 2000).
Race, class and gender exclusions were routinely maintained in sports,
and still are to some extent. Although various attempts were made to
democratize participation, the barriers did not really begin to give
way until after the Second World War, in the same period that led to
the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and led to various liberations,
civil rights and equal rights movements around the world. The right
to participate in sports is an aspect of social and cultural rights
and is directly related to the rights to health and education.
The Universal Declaration on Human Rights indirectly advocates the right
to participate in sport through Article 24 (“everyone has the
right to rest and leisure”) and Article 27 (“the right freely
to participate in the cultural life of the community”). However,
the first specific international declarations of the right to participate
in sport and physical activity emerged in the 1970s. European nations
developed the 1976 European Sport for All Charter, the first Article
of which stated that:
Sport and the human rights of specific classes
Increasingly, marginalized groups and populations are announcing their
presence and claiming their right to human rights with the use of sport.
Using just one sport, football (soccer), recent examples include:
These examples are replicated by larger classes of persons who, throughout
the world, have struggled for greater involvement in sport (the right
to participate), often as part of a larger struggle for human rights
and/or in the belief that participation in sport will enable the achievement
of human rights. The following provides a brief outline of some of these
struggles.
Gender. The first major victory
for women’s rights in sport was in the United States, where Title
IX (the 1972 Educational Amendments to the Civil Rights Act) forced many
public educational institutions to increase the resources for women’s
sports. This legislation had a powerful impact on increasing the participation
of girls and women in sport (although a negative effect on the number
of coaching and administrative positions for women) and many have argued
that such increases in participation are related to increasing gender
equity in the United States. In 1979, the UN Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) included article
10g, which specifically advocates the right to participate in sports.
Gender equity campaigns and legislation in many countries have helped
to increase women’s participation (e.g. in Canada, the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms (1982) brought sports under the ambit of federal and
provincial human rights codes). However, it was the emergence in the mid-1990s
of lobby groups to advocate specifically for women’s rights in sport,
most importantly the International Working Group on Women in Sport and
Atlanta Plus, that have driven adherence to CEDAW and obliged patriarchal
organizations such as the IOC to begin to deal with gender equity issues
in sport.
Disability. The struggle for disability
rights is contemporary with, but initially received less attention than
other human rights movements. However, the organization of sports by and
for athletes with a mental or a physical disability, culminating in the
Special Olympics and the Paralympic Games, has resulted in a significant
growth in participation. Many argue that the demonstration of skill and
effort by athletes with a disability signals to able-bodied individuals
the capacity and equality of those with a disability.
Sexuality. Sport has been considered
as one of the most hostile environments for gay and lesbian athletes.
However, in line with sexuality rights movements in various countries
and the inclusion of sexuality in equity legislation, gay and lesbian
sport teams and leagues have been established in many cities in the West
and the organization of the Gay Games (and the recent alternative Out
Games (Montreal, 2006)) to celebrate gay and lesbian sport have led to
reports of slowly growing inclusion and less ‘compulsory heterosexuality’.
National and international sport organizations have recently reached agreements
on the inclusion of transgendered athletes in sports.
Aboriginal and racial minority. The
growing aboriginal rights movements around the world have frequently attempted
to revive traditional cultures, including physical cultures. This has
sometimes led to the re-establishment of traditional games and games festivals
(e.g. the Arctic Winter Games). However, aboriginal athletes also participate
in modern sports and their accomplishments add immeasurably to community
pride and possibly to the perceived status and equity struggles of aboriginal
peoples.
The anti-apartheid movement was contemporary with, and preceded, other
campaigns for racial human rights in sports. Leading up to the Mexico
City Olympic Games, the Olympic Movement for Human Rights advocated
a boycott, but ended with the sacrificial gesture of two United States
black athletes on the podium. The campaign in the United States continues
with Richard Lapchick’s annual racial report cards. In the United
Kingdom, the Sporting Equals campaign continues the advocacy of racial
rights, together with specific campaigns in cricket and football. Similar
monitoring and campaign exist or are planned in a number of countries.
Children. Please see ‘Sport
and Children’s Rights' in this issue.
Poverty. Social class is the ‘elephant
in the room’ in terms of human rights, equity and sport participation.
Even in developed nations there is a well-established linear relationship
between income and participation in sport and physical activity. Poverty
is the single greatest barrier to participation. Human rights and equity
legislation deal quite well with categories of humans based on identity,
as noted above; such legislation is much less effective in dealing with
the material conditions of life. As Gary Armstrong notes with regard to
the neighbourhood football programmes established in Liberia following
the civil war, in a statement that resonates with both poverty and the
MDGs (below), “rehabilitation and reintegration projects are doomed
to fail if there is no better life offered to the disaffected demilitarized”
(2006, p. 206).
Combination / the MDGs. The classes
of persons listed above characterize people in terms of a single category.
Since everyone has a gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, age, social class
and varying levels of ability/disability, classification in terms of a
single category limits the opportunities for analysis of sport and human
rights. The Millennium Development Goals, by taking into account poverty
and social class, age, gender and health status, provide a limited combination
of social structural categories. Leading up to 2005, the International
Year of Sport and Physical Education, two major documents were produced
relating sport and physical education to achievement of the MDGs (Swiss
Agency for Development, 2005; United Nations, 2003). These documents argue,
with limited evidence, that increased participation in sport will assist
in the achievement of the MDGs. While increased participation is a worthy
goal, it will be important to determine the specific circumstances under
which such participation leads to the achievement of human rights.
Workers / athletes. More research
attention has been directed to a somewhat different class of persons,
those who work in the sports and sporting goods industries. The recognition
that athletes must be afforded the same protections enjoyed by all citizens
derives much of its moral and legal force from human rights legislation
(cf. Kidd and Eberts, 1982; Barnes, 1996). However, the well-documented
violations of athletes rights to health, freedom of speech (MacNeill,
et al., 2001) and other well established human rights indicates that a
different set of ‘working’ conditions appears to apply to
those in professional and high performance sport (cf. Rhoden’s (2006)
recent book referring to wealthy Black professional athletes in the U.S.
as “$40 million slaves”).
Workers in the sporting goods industry have also received a great deal
of attention in recent years, spearheaded by the anti-Nike campaign
(Knight & Greenberg, 2002; Sage, 1999). Concerns about the export
of jobs to low wage countries, sweatshop working conditions and child
labour have resulted in a sustained campaign to monitor and improve
the conditions for workers in the sporting goods and sport apparel industries.
Some successes have been achieved in improving the workers’ right
of those employed in the sports industries.
Conclusion
The achievement of human rights in terms of participation in sport has
been mixed. Significant gains have been reported in the participation
rates of women and persons with a disability. However, the Sport for
All campaigns in Western nations appear to have stalled, often with
significantly less than 50% of the population participating regularly,
and renewed research efforts need to be made to determine the appropriate
circumstances and policies that might lead to optimum realization of
the right to participate in sport.
With regard to the achievement of human rights through sport, only in
the anti-apartheid campaign did sport unequivocally assist in the achievement
of racial equity in South Africa. In other cases, there is abundant
anecdotal evidence of assumed relationships between participation in
sport and the achievement of a broader range of human rights.
What is needed is much more systematic evidence of the circumstances
under which the opportunity to participate in sport might result in
learning the skills and motivation to win the struggle for human rights
for various classes of persons.
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Contact
Dr. Peter Donnelly University of Toronto Toronto, CANADA Peter.donnelly@utoronto.ca Dr. Bruce Kidd University of Toronto Toronto, CANADA Bruce.kidd@utoronto.ca ![]() http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5 |