Kuwait City, Kuwait, June 24, 2025: The Olympic Council of Asia took another step forward in creating a “safe sport” environment for athletes by hosting the OCA Webinar - Safeguarding in Youth Sports: Preparing for a Safe and Inclusive Asian Youth Games - on Tuesday, June 24.
The two-hour webinar featured four international speakers, including from the International Olympic Committee, and was presented by Mrs. Sabine Fakhoury, OCA Gender Equity and Safeguarding Manager.
The webinar was aimed specifically at the 3rd Asian Youth Games, which will be held in Bahrain this October, and the attendees included officials from the AYG organising committee as well as from National Olympic Committees.
In summing up the webinar, Mrs. Fakhoury said: “I would like to say a big thank you to all our speakers and, of course, to the NOC participants. Thank you for your time and dedication to creating a safe environment for our young athletes across Asia.”
The webinar concluded with four main points for the NOCs:
*Safeguarding Officer accreditations
*Understand the responsibilities of the NOC Safeguarding Officer
*Use IOC, OCA and other organisations’ safeguarding material to support your NOC
*OCA to disseminate visuals for the Bahrain Asian Youth Games 2025.
The Deputy Director General of the OCA, Mr. Vinod Kumar Tiwari, welcomed all participants to the webinar and stressed that the safety and wellbeing of young athletes was “non-negotiable”.
“We are talking about our youth. The athletes will be under 17 at the Asian Youth Games in Bahrain, all minors and juniors, and maybe away from home for the first time. This makes them also very vulnerable.”
Mr. Tiwari said safeguarding was one of the main focuses of the OCA, with the appointment of a dedicated Safeguarding Officer at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou and the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin. “We will continue to support the Safeguarding Officer accreditation and we strongly encourage every NOC to appoint a Safeguarding Officer.
“Safeguarding is our collective responsibility and we must all take it seriously,” he said.
The webinar addressed four main themes:
*Safeguarding Youth in Sport: Gloria Viseras, IOC Senior Manager Safeguarding - Health, Medicine and Science.
During a survey at the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024, athletes had been asked to think of a word associated with a healthy and an unhealthy environment in which to compete.
The 10 most popular words for a healthy environment were: fun, safe, good, positive, friends, supportive, fair, happy, respect, food. The unhealthy word associations were: bad, bullying, negative, doping, unsafe, abuse, sad, unfair, cheating, food.
Of the five continents, four of them – Africa, America, Europe and Oceania – chose “fun” as the most important word for a healthy/positive games, while Asia alone said “safe”, with fun in second place.
In the negative category, Asia was the only continent to choose “bullying”, while Africa said “cheating” and the other three said a “bad” games.
*The “Dos and Don’ts” of Safeguarding in Sport During Games: Marie-Laure Lemineur, FIFA Head of Safeguarding and Child Protection.
“No action is not an option,” she said. “You must follow up.” Cultural awareness was another key aspect for a Safeguarding Officer, she added.
*NOC Local to Global Safeguarding: Presented by Norman Brook on behalf of Claudia Villa Hughes, Independent Consultant, Member of International Safeguards for Children in Sport and Head of Safeguarding at Centre for Sport and Human Rights.
The presentation highlighted the important role of the Chef de Mission to ensure proper safeguarding measures were in place before, during and after a games. “Safeguarding is not time-bound,” he stressed. He also highlighted the growing problem of social media, with instances of athletes receiving abuse and even death threats which harmed their mental wellbeing.
*Empowering Asian Safeguarding in Sports: Hera Liew, Chief Strategy & Engagement Officer, Asian Safeguarding in Sports Network.
Hera praised the steps taken by the OCA, including the safeguarding workshop in Bangkok last December, the promo kiosk at the Asian Winter Games in Harbin in February and now this webinar ahead of the AYG Bahrain 2025. She highlighted that only 17 Asian NOCs out of 45 had at least one IOC-certified Safeguarding Officer.
