This week, I was a guest speaker for the mid-term conference of the SAFE HARBOUR Project, an initiative by the European Olympic Committees to strengthen safeguarding in European sport.
Working in support of the IOC, the project aims to support national Olympic committees and sports federations in implementing robust safeguarding policies by establishing standards, providing training and resources, and promoting good governance. It will also lay the foundations for an upcoming IOC Safe Sport regional hub in Europe.
The consortium includes safeguarding professionals, researchers, 30 national olympic committees (Andorra, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands) and 2 international federations (International Biathlon Union and the International Ice Hockey Federation).
This week’s mid-term conference brought together these key stakeholders to discuss ongoing safeguarding challenges and share insights from the project so far. I was invited to provide a lived-experience perspective in the form of a 20-minute session titled ‘Safeguarding Through the Eyes of a Survivor’.
The conference began with a summary of the SAFE HARBOUR project’s gap report, which mapped the current measures and reporting procedures in places and highlighted key areas for improvement. Senior researcher Antoine Duval of the Asser Institute then explained some of the key legislative challenges in safeguarding in sport and how to address them. This included the protection of survivors during disciplinary procedures, maintaining data protection when collecting and sharing information, and collaborating with law enforcement during safeguarding investigations. In later sessions, representatives from national Olympic committees and international federations discussed how to translate evidence from safe sport research into their policies and practices to ensure safeguarding is embedded into their organisational cultures, and also shared insights on the importance of a collaborative approach to this work.
One of the ongoing challenges of safeguarding in sport is that people working in this space often feel as if they’re working in silos. Safeguarding officers can sometimes feel as though they’re fighting the system, even within their own organisations, having to advocate for the cause in order to gain buy-in from leaders and colleagues. While safeguarding should be everyone’s responsibility, that is not the current reality in many organisations. Additionally, this field is often under-resourced, with safeguarding officers often carrying multiple roles, which creates limited capacity. While many organisations are advancing safeguarding approaches, a lack of collaboration is a barrier to carrying out this work effectively and efficiently. The SAFE HARBOUR project provides a much-needed change by bringing a large group of stakeholders together to share knowledge and resources so that partners can implement the changes needed in their local contexts. The voices of impacted people are also crucial to this work, and I’m glad that I was able to contribute to the project in this way.
In my talk, I discussed how safeguarding officers, sports organisations and media representatives can take a survivor-centred approach when engaging with people with lived experience of abuse in sport. To illustrate this, I drew from some of my personal experiences, explaining some of the barriers I’ve faced and harm I’ve experienced in my advocacy work, lived-experience consultancy and interactions with journalists. This involved sharing comments I’d received which were intended to be supportive or complimentary, but actually made me feel uncomfortable. I explained the subtle ways harm can inadvertently be caused when victim-blaming narratives are perpetuated, survivors’ autonomy is undermined, and content is prioritised over wellbeing.
I also shared positive examples, including the survivor consultation I took part in with UNESCO and the Sports & Rights Alliance last year, explaining some of the key steps the organisers took to make us feel comfortable and valued. I closed by providing some key recommendations for how organisations can create welcoming, inclusive and empathetic spaces where survivors are appropriately valued and respected.
In a recent focus group I participated in with fellow athlete-survivors, we lamented how each time we get together, we inevitably end up venting to each other about negative experiences we’ve had — not of abuse, but of engagement with sports organisations. Through talks like this one, I aim to address some of these missteps and help authorities navigate these engagements more mindfully. This is part of my ongoing mission to make sure that other athletes don’t have to face the same barriers or have the same negative experiences that I did.
Emma is a safeguarding consultant specialising in preventing and responding to sexual violence in Muay Thai. She’s also a former fighter, athlete-survivor and advocate, and has been writing about gendered issues in Muay Thai since 2013. After living in Thailand for 12 years, she completed a master’s degree in Sports Ethics & Integrity in Europe, conducting the world’s first study on sexual harassment & abuse in Muay Thai.
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