How does child abuse research contribute to sport development?
One of the most urgent needs in this field is for research on abuse and protection within the many sport-for-development projects currently being used by governments as part of their overseas aid programmes. Such programmes have proliferated in post-conflict communities and areas suffering natural disasters. In such settings, sport has frequently been imported as a social panacea: aside from the accusations of neo-colonialism that this has drawn it also means that projects have often not been ‘safe-washed’, in other words that no welfare planning has been undertaken or implemented. In such circumstances it is all-too-easy for abusive practices to be perpetrated which undermine any alleged social and economic benefits. Fortunately, UNICEF has recognised this situation and commissioned a series of reviews of the evidence about violence against children in sport that will be used to inform their future sport programmes. How can sport development students find out more? The CPSU’s website
