Child athletes in Japan are suffering physical, sexual and verbal abuse when training, the Human Rights Watch has revealed in a report detailing the experience of young athletes from 50 sports in the country.
The accounts of abuse by more than 800 former child athletes include being punched in the face, kicked, beaten with objects.
Of 381 survey respondents aged 24 and younger, 22 per cent reported being forced to train when injured or being punished with excessive training, with several respondents describing “the running punishment” of being forced to run to the point of exhaustion.
One 22-year-old volleyball player from Kagoshima wrote: “If we lost in a game, we were punished by being made to run back home, or to train for a long time.”
A quarter of the survey recipients reported being forced to eat excessive amounts of food, and seven per cent reported that they were not provided with enough food or water during competition.
Shota C.*, a former high school baseball player, described being forced to eat in order to gain weight.
“After playing baseball, the [head coach] ordered some food directly to the grounds, and we used to eat them after practice,” they said.
“We were forced to eat them, even if we didn’t want to. If you didn’t eat, you were not motivated. If you wanted to participate in the national competition you needed to finish your daily meal.”
Six per cent reported having their hair cut or shaved as punishment, including being late to training. An 18-year-old high school basketball player from Kanagawa said that if a junior team member made “trouble,” he could have his head shaved.
“One would be subject to this rule by being late, or forgetting to bring an item [to practice] ... [one] was forced to shave his head as an ‘example’.”
These accounts, detailed in the 67-page report, shows that Japan’s history of corporal punishment in sport, known as taibastu in Japanese, is commonplace in sports throughout Japanese schools, federations and elite sports.
The prevalence of taibastu is despite the treatment of young athletes in Japan facing scrutiny over the past decade. In 2013, when Japan was bidding to host the 2020 Olympics, a 16-second video of a high-school teenage boy being slapped in the face 13 times by his volleyball coach went viral.
The same year, a series of high-profile allegations of abuse led to the resignation of coaches, including the coach of the .
There have been reports of young athletes taking their own lives, citing abuse by the coaches. Tsubasa Araya, a 17-year-old high school volleyball player, took his own life in Iwate prefecture in July 2018.
“Volleyball is the hardest,” Tsubasa wrote in a message found at his desk after his death.
These incidents, and the media reports that followed, led to widespread reforms in the 2010s, including a Declaration on the Elimination of Violence in Sports in 2013 and Comprehensive Guideline for Athletic Club Activities in 2018.
The Human Rights Watch claims these initiatives fall short of the actions needed to protect children, which includes a national law to protest child athletes from abuse, rather than allowing sports organisations to design their own systems of response.
“Sport can bring benefits like health, scholarships, and careers, but too often victims of abuse experience suffering and despair,” said Takuya Yamazaki, a sports lawyer on the Executive Committee of the World Players Association, the global athletes’ trade union who partnered with Human Rights Watch on the report.
“One of the reasons why it is so hard to deal with cases of abuse is that athletes are not encouraged to have a voice.”
Worldwide problem
The abuse of young athletes is not isolated to Japan. In one of the most publicised cases of longstanding abuse of child athletes, gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar sexually assaulted young athletes for decades before he was charged and sentenced to what amounted to 175 years in prison.
Survivors include Olympic gold medallists Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney.
On June 26, according to thetook her own life after filing complaints with sport and government officials about the physical and psychological abuse she suffered as an athlete.
In the UK, last week that there have been more than 160 cases of sports coaches engaging in sexual activity with a 16 or 17-year-old in their care since 2016. The investigation was published shortly after allegations former British gymnastics championwas hit by a coach when she was 10-years-old.
“Taking decisive action to protect child athletes will send a message to Japan’s children that their health and well-being are more important than medals – while placing abusive coaches on notice that their behavior will no longer be tolerated,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch.
“If Japan acts now, it can serve as a model for how other countries can end child abuse in sports.”
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