Does Sexual Abuse Occur in Sport in Australia?
From a group of 370 elite and club, male and female athletes, 31% of female athletes and 21.3% of male athletes reported that they had experienced sexual abuse at some point in their lives. It was also found that almost half, 46.4%, of the elite group reporting sexual abuse, had been sexually abused by sports personnel. For the club group, this figure was 25.6%. These data indicate that for athletes who report being sexually abused, and who are involved in competitive sport at the elite level, the odds are almost even that someone associated with that environment will have abused them. And there is a one in four chance that a club level athlete reporting sexual abuse will have been abused by someone associated with that environment. The sport-related abuse was primarily perpetrated by those in positions of authority or trust with the athletes. These included primarily coaches and, less frequently, support staff, and other athletes. For the sake of grammatical clarity, I use the pronoun
