Studying In Japan

Recent revelations of sexual harassment incidents force us to conclude that the sporting world seems to have a lowly view of women's rights.

In a junior high school in Osaka Prefecture, a male teacher overseeing a school club had continuously molested 19 female students. He was finally fired this month.

Reports say that since two years ago, the teacher had regularly told female students to see him in rooms, including the principal's office, and had repeatedly put his hands in their underwear under the pretense of giving them massages. It seems his actions are nothing but criminal.

Also last year, in Kumamoto Prefecture, a male junior high school teacher instructing a school sports club was fired for having continuously instructed about a dozen female students to take off their clothes. He touched their breasts on the pretense of giving them massages.

In Nagoya, a figure-skating coach was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a junior high school girl he was coaching. It is almost unbearable to even think of the horrific physical and emotional damage done to the victim.

The Kumamoto teacher said the purpose of his actions was to "give them gumption."

The figure-skating coach said, "I was drunk." The very fact that people like these were allowed to roam around as teachers and instructors is frightening.

Problems like these are not limited to Japan. In Norway, one-third of the country's 550 top-class athletes said they had experienced sexual harassment in the sporting world.

In Canada, 20 percent of 230 former Olympians said they had physical relations with the upper echelons of their sports associations, and nearly 10 percent said the relationship was forced.

Japan also needs to immediately conduct a full-blown investigation.

In the backdrop, there remains a lingering mood within the sporting world that a coach's use of violence is acceptable. In one women's physical education university, 40 percent of 600 students said they were hit by their coaches during their sports club activities.

There are also many cases of touching that is described as massaging and other things. One-on-one coaching in a private room is also common.

Of course, these things may be allowed if there is a relationship of trust between the coach and the athlete. But we cannot deny that such situations are breeding grounds for sexual harassment.

In Kumamoto, the prefectural school board announced a ban on teachers giving students massages during club activities. This is an appropriate measure; sports massages should be administered only by qualified experts. And this rule should be strictly implemented along with a ban on the use of violence as a way of teaching.

For private companies, systematic measures to prevent sexual harassment were put in place in the late 1990s. The sports world was slow on the uptake and went through a series of sexual harassment cases by famous instructors in track and field. Only seven years ago, preventive guidelines were introduced in the world of athletics.

Many sports associations followed suit with their own ethical guidelines, but in reality, those guidelines are not quite functioning. For starters, only a few women are sports coaches, and there are even fewer female executives in sports organizations and associations. A framework should be set up to foster the recruitment of females as top officials.

As it stands, it would be difficult for Japan to make boasts about being a top sporting nation seeking to host the Summer Olympic Games for a second time. We urge the sporting community to tackle this task aggressively and to make up for all the lost time.

http://www.asahi.com/news/