Faster, higher, stronger… safer? Safety concerns for young athletes in Zambia

Abstract

This article draws attention to safety concerns affecting young people in the setting of organized sport in Zambia. Our primary aim is to explore ways in which aspects of sport culture may constitute a threat to athlete safety. Secondly, we try to understand sport-specific safety concerns in light of more general concerns for young people’s safety in Zambia. The study is based on interviews with athletes, coaches and sports leaders from Zambian sport. Although sport was mainly described as a positive recreational arena for youth, concerns were raised about unequal power relations and problematic ideals in the sport culture. Our findings suggest a need to discuss critically how glorification of toughness and resilience might contribute to normalize harmful practices in sport. Further, we indicate that divergent and elusive understandings of violence and abuse – in research and in practice – can influence athlete safety in significant ways. We conclude that safeguarding in sport continues to exist in the tension between protecting athletes from harm on the one hand and subscribing to a culture that promotes the ideals ‘faster, higher, stronger’ on the other.

Sexual Harassment or Just Coaching? Sport Students Making Sense of Possibly Sexualising Coach Behaviours

“…Surface similarities between sport scripts and sexual harassment scripts, and the students' inclination to consider grey area behaviours from a sporting point of view, raise concern that problematic coach behaviours that do not collide with sport scripts can slip under the radar. For instance, the value placed on toughness and hardening in sport can make athletes endure authoritarian and harsh behaviour from coaches (Solstad and Strandbu 2017). The same can be the case with sexualised banter, for instance, as well as the types of behaviour we have studied here.…”

Participation of girls and women in community sport in Ghana: Cultural and structural barriers

“…It might be the case, as indicated in interviews with sports leaders in Zambia, that gender-based violence and harassment are perceived as broad societal issues (not specific to sports) and, therefore, they were not deemed crucial to underscore in the interviews about sports participation. Safe sport issues that affect girls and women as revealed in other African countries (Erulkar and Muthengi, 2009; Fasting et al, 2014; Shehu, 2010; Solstad and Rhind, 2018; Solstad and Strandbu, 2019) could have been addressed in this study. These issues included child marriages and gender-based violence and harassment and are important because in a recent report, the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana described women in contemporary Ghanaian society as ‘overwhelmingly’ subjected to objectification and stereotyping and regarded as a marital or sexual commodity (Anyidoho et al, 2016: 37).…”

Breaking the Silence: Perceived Barriers to Safeguarding Child and Young Athletes in Uganda and a Rights-Based Framework for Positive Change

“…Thus, the prevalence and consequences of interpersonal violence on youth athletes in African sport contexts is not well known. In Zambia, Solstad and Strandbu (2019) found that (i) unequal power relations in sport (often gendered, where girls were seen as more vulnerable and exposed to 'devastating' risks such as unsolicited sex and unplanned pregnancies, though this is also non-gendered, i.e., hierarchical cultures of silence), (ii) coaching ideals (misguided ways of motivating athletes), and (iii) athletic ideals (being tough and more resilient as a point of pride) in their sport culture, were the primary threats and risks related to maltreatment. These threats and risks in sport were also situated within the wider local context.…”