Child Rights

Hundreds of millions of children worldwide are engaged in sport, from elite athletes to those participating in school and community teams.  Others are spectators or those living in cities hosting mega sport events.  For the majority of these children, participation in sport brings a range of positive psycho-social, health and educational benefits. Sport can contribute to the development of their self-esteem and well-being and help them to build life skills.  However, for some children, sport can bring negative experiences of physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, peer aggression, undue stress, harassment, hazing, bullying, doping, trafficking, displacement and child labour.

The Centre for Sport and Human Rights aspires to a world of sport that respects and protects the rights of children at all levels. Towards this end it supports actions that:

• Grow the knowledge base on children in sport that can inform policies, programmes, legislation and resource allocations
• Promote the adoption by sports organisations of policies and measures to ensure the respect, protection, and safeguarding of children in the sport ecosystem
• Ensure that children’s rights are protected in all phases of Mega Sporting Events
• Bring to the attention of governments their obligations to children in the sport environment
• Take into account the perspectives and concerns of children related to their engagement with sport
• Provide children , who have experienced harm or a violation of their rights in sport,  to access to child-friendly remedy