Child advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison has issued a call to action to the nation’s sporting leaders to eliminate the physical, sexual and mental abuse of athletes, particularly students, by creating a framework of rules that penalises the primary offenders, their coaches.

Gordon Harrison threw down the gauntlet at the first Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) Breakfast Forum, themed “Investing Now: Safeguarding our Future”. It was held at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in Kingston.

“Within your theme lies an urgent message and indeed a call to action that we must heed if we’re at all serious,” she noted.

In an impassioned plea, chairperson of the Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA), Gordon Harrison, identified children as the most critical cohorts in the society and linked their relevance to sport, given its “transformative and very impactful way of reaching all sorts of persons at all different levels in society”.

Citing this “uncomfortable, but important discussion that must continue”, she related that data “… shows overwhelmingly that children remain way more impressionable than adults and most times have an unshakeable reverence and belief and trust in their coaches. This tremendous power is not something that should be wasted,” said Gordon Harrison.

The topic gained increasing relevance recently with allegations and widely reported acts of physical abuse against student athletes that were broadcast on television and in other media.

“Let us move away for instance from circumstances that saw the Office of Children’s Advocate receiving the level of reports over a two-year period lodged against coaches and PE teachers. This period was from January 2017 to December 2018,” outlined Gordon Harrison.

“These are all bad investments that need to be reversed and to become a thing of the past. The trend needs to be arrested now. We’re barely into 2019 for instance and already for this month of January, over an eight-day period, there have been three very disturbing reports which have been lodged with the OCA against coaches,” shared Gordon Harrison.

“Let us not continue to have these serious allegations about the sexual touching of a child at the hands of a coach, nor the passing of inappropriate comments of how ‘ready’ a teenager, who was merely trying to advance her skills, now looked for the taking; nor unfortunately, of a child to perform oral sex on a coach, as we have had. These are actual cases that I’m extrapolating from.”

She challenged everyone to speak up on the issues.

“Yours is the duty to speak up and make a report even upon mere suspicion. You’re not called upon to prove anything, you’re not called upon to provide any evidence even, but you’re called upon to err on the side of caution for the sake of a child. To stand on principle is the only way,” urged Gordon Harrison.

“Each of us through our silence empowers that perpetrator and shields him or her in the cloak of avoidance. That avoidance, where we see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, and even if we hear it and suspect it, it’s not our business, we’re not getting involved. Our silence also makes a trusting and vulnerable child become jaded and in fact, become a pawn and that child’s worth may be undermined.”

Consequently, Gordon Harrison called for legislation and action.

“As member associations and governing bodies, do not be afraid to draft and implement strict rules that are accompanied by strong penalties in the event of a breach. The IOC is on board with this,” she said.

Further, Gordon Harrison recommended a system used in the United States in which there has to be at least two coaches on site or no training.

“This is seen as a good situation because it protects the coach from somebody who is fabricating an allegation and it protects the child because … you can find yourself in a safe situation because you have another adult there; it is said to minimise the possibility or the potential” for wrongdoing, she argued.

“Another example is that in the event of any allegation of inappropriate behaviour, the alleged perpetrator is to be removed from the front line until the investigation is complete. In Jamaica, our approach is different.”

Gordon Harrison said as a precursor, “antecedents who want to play a role in your sports programme” should be audited through a background check.

“Prospective applicants must sign a full disclosure clause as agreement and this is a condition of the recruitment process. So it’s not that ‘oh, this person is brilliant and we’re going to recruit and employ him’, it’s about doing proper due diligence before that person is installed so that you know the full composite of the person you’re interfacing with,” she suggested.

“These, ladies and gentlemen, are but a few of the types of investments that I yearn to see implemented across the board. The Jamaica Olympic Association and all its member organisations are well placed to play a role in leading the charge and I’m confident that with this brilliant idea and the tremendous goodwill that I know exists in this room you will do it,” Gordon Harrison challenged. “You will deliver and I expect you to deliver. I must, you must and collectively we all will for the sake of our future.”