How can India stop sexism in women's sports?

DW (English)

Female athletes in India say they experience sexism, favoritism, and sexual harassment. DW Asia looks at what's behind this and what needs to be changed.

Transcript

00:00 India's women's sport is under the spotlight again.

00:03 India's women's hockey team coach, J. N. A. K. Schopman, a Dutch woman, has accused

00:08 the officials of Hockey India of discriminatory behaviour.

00:13 The former Olympic gold medallist said the men's team got a preferential treatment and

00:18 that this country is extremely difficult for women.

00:22 She also said, and I quote, "I come from a culture where women are respected and valued.

00:27 I don't feel that here.

00:28 I wanted to understand more about that and so I asked an expert."

00:33 The absence of women coaches in India is very, very visible and obviously, Anika Schopman

00:37 is one of the rare head coaches in any sport.

00:41 So there is this patriarchy that works in Indian sport.

00:43 But as we have seen with the wrestlers' protest, no matter how influential and important an

00:48 athlete you are, you can find yourself in a position where you are, you know, basically,

00:54 you are made to feel small, you are made to feel inconsequential because of the fact that

00:58 you happen to be a woman.

00:59 The wrestlers' protest this journalist is referring to happened last year when some

01:04 of India's most prominent wrestlers led a sit-in protest near the country's parliament

01:10 demanding action against a powerful politician who also helmed the Wrestling Federation of

01:15 India for more than a decade.

01:17 He has been accused of sexually harassing and intimidating female athletes.

01:22 These women wrestlers are the most successful women wrestlers internationally that the country

01:27 has ever had.

01:29 They were treated in exactly the way all women's complaints are treated with regard to abuse

01:33 in our society.

01:34 If it's happening to our top athletes, can you imagine what's happening right at the

01:39 ground level?

01:40 I wanted to find out are these just two unrelated cases or is abuse of positions ingrained in

01:46 sporting structures?

01:48 Indian sporting structures are very lopsidedly sort of handled.

01:53 The people that run our sports federations usually tend to be politicians, bureaucrats

01:58 or businessmen with a little bit of interest in sport.

02:01 And the moment you get that in, nobody wants their business to be regulated in any way.

02:06 A lot of the money and funding comes from government.

02:08 There are no grievance redressal mechanisms that actually are independent and can work

02:12 properly.

02:13 Wrestling is not the only sport in India affected by sexual harassment.

02:17 The coach of the country's national cycling team was sacked in 2022 following similar

02:22 charges.

02:23 A 2021 research report indicated that there could be nearly 200 perpetrators and 10,000

02:30 victims across 53 major sports in India.

02:33 Predatory behaviors, unequal pay, lack of funding, poor access to resources and corruption

02:40 all play a role in the abysmal state of Indian women's sport.

02:44 So what needs to change?

02:45 So you're hoping that this will come through, that her experience and someone like her will

02:51 come through and there will be more women outside of just the playing field.

02:54 They're there calling the shots, doing the coaching, being in senior positions.

02:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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