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Grace Chingoma-Senior Sports Reporter
LOCAL female sports administrators are advocating for strong mechanisms and systems for reporting abuse of women and girls which they believe is rampant in local sport.
Following FIFA’s ban of football referee Obert Zhoya for sexually abusing local female referees, the conversation around abuse and harassment in sport has been amplified.
And some veteran female administrators believe that it is high time that clear systems are put in place to protect the girl child.
Former Zimbabwe Cricket board member, who has also sat on ZOC Women in Sport Commission board, Sekesai Nhokwara, unpacked the issue of abuse and called for educational and reporting mechanisms.
Angela Nyaundi, a former Sports Commission development manager who also worked at the women in sport projects desk at the regulator, said it is the right time to revisit the issue of a Women in Sport Foundation and setting it up.
ZOC vice-president and ZINA president, Leticia Chipandu, feels that women need to be more capacitated so that they take more roles such as coaching that are dominated by men.
Nhokwara believes that there is more abuse in sport than what is reported.
“There is so much abuse that is happening across the board and so many women and so many girls remain quiet because they don’t know what to do next.
“We have had, of course, few success stories of women who have reported and we find the law taking its course and these women getting their justice. But how many women are we talking about? It’s just a small percentage out of all the women that have experienced such,” said Nhokwara.
Nhokwara feels that the nature of the sporting environment can expose the girl child when dealing with male coaches, who have so much power in team selections.
“So we can look at it, and say how this can be avoided and what we can put in place to make sure that young girls and women, in general, are protected from sexual abuse and harassment.
“From years back when I used to be with the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee and heading the women in sport commission, we carried out a survey which was based on sexual harassment and abuse in sport.
“We were supported financially to carry out this research by the International Olympic Committee, and we discovered that we don’t have strong reporting mechanisms.
“We also do not have a lot of educational programmes. So when we got to find these results coming through the survey, we started running educational programmes in different sporting disciplines and I want to think that every sport body, including our own Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, should run a lot of educational programmes.
“I know that they are happening but would like to think that we need to kind of spread them even further than what is happening currently,” she said.
Nhokwara feels that women athletes and officials must get extensive education on abuse.
“So you find that they are ever targeted because they are few in numbers and at times they haven’t received enough help in terms of getting an education on how do I protect myself? How do I create boundaries for myself?
“So I want to think that education is the number one key and also now in terms of reporting mechanisms, I feel that the local sporting fraternity should have a mechanism where girls and women can report without fear.
“If anything bad happens, they should be in a position where they should be free to report, and wherever they go to report that information should be treated with confidentiality. There should be trust, and whoever is placing the report should be protected,” said Nhokwara.
Nyaundi, who always advocated for women in sport foundation during her active days in administration, strongly believes in an independent platform for women in sport.
“A platform which is independent of all sporting codes would be ideal. “We were not successful with the idea. We have a women’s group but that would not be very effective.
“In Canada they have it and when I was still active in sport, I had an opportunity to visit its offices, where they carry out education, training, research and other courses to empower women.
“They are partly sponsored by the Government of Canada. In Zambia, we taught them, as well Botswana and even South Africa and they have since established these organisations, but we haven’t up to now.
“When I was involved and lobbying for this organisation I discovered that it would work very well. It can be a working group but with powers to educate and empower women, who are then expected to go and practice what they would have learnt,” said Nyaundi.
Chipandu encouraged national associations to come up with sub-committees that deal with abuse and where athletes feel comfortable reporting abuse.
“Our athletes need to be educated and know that positions in national teams are awarded on merit. Grapevine has it that some coaches select players for major competitions in exchange of sexual favours. “We also need more female administrators and coaches in sport. We end up turning to male coaches because at times they are more committed and passionate about sport.
“But having more females in these positions would help to manage some of these issues that comes with working with male officials.
We appreciate the work that is done by male coaches but naturally, some things are understood better by females like the female anatomy,” said Chipandu.
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