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Roxana Maracineanu, the Minister of Sports, revealed an initial assessment of the cell set up six months ago to track down sexual predators in the sports world.
The revelations of sexual violence that have tainted the sports environment (we think of that of the figure skating champion Sarah Abitbol) for a few years have led to a real background investigation. To no longer leave these attacks in the shade, in 2019, a structure was created to centralize testimony and act as quickly as possible against sexual violence, chaperoned by the Ministry of Sports.
And Wednesday, the Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu drew up a first assessment, can we read in the Parisian. Today, 177 reports have reached the ministry's anti-violence cell. In 100% of the cases, there are administrative or judicial investigations. 76% of the incidents reported relate to rape and sexual assault.
According to the investigations and relayed by the Parisian, the victims are mainly women (78%) and for 98% they were minors at the time of the facts. Half of the acts denounced were prior to 2019 and 22% date from 2019 or this year.
A problem in recruiting educators
Interestingly enough, according to the cell, reports come in particular from the victims themselves (22%), federations (28%) or state services such as the departmental directorates (25%). There are 40 sports federations that have been reported and 110 educators have been implicated, including 83 professional educators and 27 volunteers.
Sports educators must have a professional card which allows them to verify their legal past, in order to be able to work peacefully with children. If we refer to the balance sheet, less than half of the 83 accused had one, "which shows a failure in monitoring by their employers," said the ministry.
In addition to the 88 cases which are still pending, 24 emergency prohibition decisions and 14 final prohibitions to exercise as educator or manager have been validated.
"We must, by all means, be able to act on sports associations. City halls must be aware of what is going on there and federations must be responsible. The ministry must be there to act, that is to say systematically report to justice, verify that the investigations go to the end and then be able to take administrative and federal measures to remove these adults, when necessary ", believes Roxana Maracineanu, on Europe 1.