The National Organization for Women in Sport, […]

The National Organization for Women in Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation (NOWSPAR) has bemoaned the lack of representation of women and youths in sports boards, revealing that this is undermining proper policy formulation in the sector.

 Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times (ZBT), NOWSPAR Executive Director Mofu Kandondo said, “Now that we have more women in sport, we should have more representation, and let us youths, those that are between 20 and 35 years, as compared to having more older people in such positions, if we are talking about developing the sport, we should have a diverse group of leaders.”

She revealed that the biggest challenge with the current format of leadership is that most of the cases of abuse involving women go unresolved because they don’t have representation in the higher offices.

Kandondo added that the cases of abuse are severe, and most of the victims are the underprivileged, who opt to stay silent to avoid being excluded from the team. Most of the safeguarding concerns have gone unresolved or take a long time for the victim to be vindicated, a situation that exposes the fragile state of the sports sector in regards to women.

 “If a safeguarding concern is raised, it takes time for it to be resolved. You find that a coach receives the report, but by the time it gets to the year, nothing is happening, and most of them do not trust the system. Some say it will drag, or maybe they might be asked to withdraw. There is no proper reporting system that often does not protect even the whistleblower.”

Article Samuel Phiri