Feature: Sport and Human Rights
No.48
September 2006
 
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Sport and Children's Rights
Peter Donnelly

 

Gender and racial discrimination are addressed by major UN Conventions, and those subject to such discrimination have enjoyed, to varying degrees, gains in human rights in general, and in sport in particular in part as a result of those Conventions. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which passed in 1989, has more signatory nations than any other Convention. However, to date, children remain the major class of persons who have enjoyed almost no increase in human rights in general, or in sport. National and international sport organizations have singularly failed to deal with issues regarding the human rights of children. As a consequence, some 14 Articles of the CRC are occasionally or routinely violated in sports. For example, Articles 28, 29 and 31 affirm children’s rights to education, leisure, recreation and cultural activities, while Articles 32, 34 and 36 prohibit various forms of exploitation. Article 12 specifically ensures the rights of children to their own opinions, an important consideration when we consider how rarely children are asked for an opinion, or even expected to have one, in organized sport programmes.
In addition to the need to realize children’s right to participate in sports, there are three major areas of concern with regard to children in sports:
  • Child labour in the sporting goods industries (Donnelly & Petherick, 2004);
  • The trafficking of children for the purposes of sport (Donnelly & Petherick, 2004); and
  • The treatment of children in high performance sport (Brackenridge, 2006; David, 1993, 2004; Donnelly, 1993, 1997).
The regulation of child labour in the sporting goods industry is the responsibility of both governments and corporations. The choice of sporting goods and uniforms, and the selection of sporting goods corporations as sponsors, are the responsibilities of national and international sport federations. The need to conform to the CRC by recognizing childhood as a period of growth and development, the regulation of conditions under which children practice and compete, and under which they are bought and sold (drafted, contracted, traded, etc.), are also responsibilities of governments, national and international sport federations and umbrella organizations such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) (Donnelly & Petherick, 2004). The IOC has taken steps in recent years to achieve racial and gender equity in sports and to assist (through Olympic Solidarity) in the travel and training of athletes living in poverty. The status of children should be the next major international policy initiative in sport.

References
Brackenridge, C. (2006). Women and children first?: Child abuse and child protection in sport. In D. McArdle & R. Giulianotti (eds.), Sport, civil liberties and human rights (pp. 30-45). London: Routledge.
David, P. (1993). Children in sport: Exploitation or accomplishment? International Children’s Rights Monitor, 10(4), 8-12.
David, P. (2004). Human rights in youth sport. London: Routledge.
Donnelly, P. (1993). Problems associated with youth involvement in high performance sport. In B. Cahill & A. Pearl (eds.), Intensive participation in children’s sports (pp. 95-126) Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Donnelly, P. (1997). Child labour, sport labour: Applying child labour laws to sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 32(4), 389-406.
Donnelly, P. & Petherick, L. (2004). Workers’ playtime?: Child labour at the extremes of the sporting spectrum. Sport in Society, 7(3), 301-321.


Contact
Dr. Peter Donnelly
University of Toronto
Toronto, CANADA
Peter.donnelly@utoronto.ca




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