South Africa: The Need to Protect Young Athletes from Abuse!
By Prof Dr Steve Cornelius, Sports Law Centre, University of Pretoria, South Africa
South Africa is a country with a troubled history and a dismal record of gender violence and violence and abuse towards children. Therefore, it is no surprise – albeit terribly sad – that child abuse has also reared its ugly head in South African sport.
Arguably the most infamous case involved one of the greatest tennis doubles players and world-renowned coach, Bob Hewitt, who was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for the rape and sexual assault of at least three minor girls that he coached during the 1980s and 1990s. In spite of Hewitt’s age and medical state, the six-year sentence was shockingly lenient, if one considers the abuse of the coach/player power relations and the fact that the girls were underaged. Furthermore, one has to wonder how many other incidents there were? Surely, the three who were brave enough to speak up, would only be the tip of the proverbial iceberg!
More recently, the sport of water polo has attracted most of the unwanted media attention for misconduct of coaches and sexual misconduct during hazing at some of the most exclusive schools in South Africa. Former Parktown Boys coach Collan Rex was charged with 327 counts of sexual assault and common assault. He was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.
In another instance, the South African Police Service reopened a cold case file against a coach when a pupil committed suicide in the schools sanatorium. Fellow pupils and parents accused the coach of highly questionable conduct towards the boys under his charge. It transpired that he had left another prestigious school under a cloud of suspicion and had already secured a job at a third school when police and civil action groups intervened.
A further incident involved a female water polo coach of a boys’ water polo team at a prestigious school. The coach, who was a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, was accused of having sexual relations with the boys and sending threatening messages on social media if they threatened to break off relations or report her. An investigation by the school uncovered at least five instances of inappropriate relations. Because some of the boys were already 18 years old at the time, others refused to provide written statements to the investigators, and the coach had already resigned from her position at the school. No further action was taken.
The public response to this revelation was shocking. When instances of male on female or male on male abuse is reported, people react with shock, horror and indignation. However, in this case, where female on male abuse was reported, the comments were often “the lucky boys had a very willing swimsuit model as their coach”. This tends to trivialise such instances of abuse and may be one of the primary reasons why most boys declined to provide statements to the investigators.
The scourge of child abuse has also become a global problem. Former water polo coach, Dean Carelse, was arrested on 14 counts of indecent conduct towards children at a prestigious Sunshine Coast school in Australia. Prior to his employment in Australia, Carelse was a water polo coach at various South African Schools, raising questions whether this kind of misconduct may also have occurred at those schools.
One of the biggest problems, facing South African sports federations and schools, is that the sexual offences register in South Africa is dysfunctional and federations or schools doing background checks are often provided with inaccurate information. Schools also tend to deal with matters internally to avoid public embarrassment and often decline to share information, due to privacy concerns and concerns of defamation lawsuits, if allegations are disclosed in situations where no police investigation had taken place.
The South African Institute for Drug-free Sport has initiated a drive to expand their mandate to cover broader integrity issues in sport, with a particular focus on sexual, physical and emotional abuse. This will require legislative amendments and it is not always clear if the politicians appreciate the gravity of the problem.
Sexual violence in South African sport is undoubtedly underreported. The only statistics are the ones where actual instances have been reported and investigated. This adds to the problem as the gravity of the situation is unknown.
The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) has also launched a safeguarding policy, but sports federations alone cannot deal with this problem efficiently.
Schools’ sports fall outside the scope of SACOC’s mandate, and it seems that this is where many of the problems have arisen. What is required is a strong political will to make sexual abuse in sport, a priority crime.
Because cases involving sport tend to attract more media attention, this would have the added advantage of sending a clear message that sexual violence will not be tolerated in any context if harsh sentences are handed down to perpetrators!
Prof Dr Steve Cornelius may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
