MP Nupes co-launched this platform, “Balance ton sport”, to collect testimonies from victims of violence in sport via an online form.
“Unfortunately, there is almost no federation that has been spared by the testimonies that reach us” in terms of violence, declared this Wednesday on franceinfo Sabrina Sebaihi, Nupes deputy for Hauts-de-Seine and rapporteur of the commission of inquiry into failures in the French sports movement, created at the beginning of July. She launched the “Balance ton sport” platform with Horizons de Vendée MP Béatrice Bellamy to collect testimonies from victims of violence in sport.
>> Violence in sport: two MPs launch the “Balance ton sport” platform to collect testimonies from victims
franceinfo: Why are you launching this platform?
Sabrina Sebaihi, Nupes MP for Hauts-de-Seine:
When we set up the commission of inquiry into failures in the sports movement, I did not expect to have so many testimonies arriving through different channels. This commission of inquiry will allow us to hear people who are in this sporting movement, but we will have to submit the report by mid-December and we will not have time, unfortunately, to be able to hear all the people who ask us . The objective of this commission was to lift the silence, to break it in the federations, to free speech and to ensure that victims were given their full place. Since we launched this commission of inquiry, I have received messages via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, by email, from other colleagues, from people, victims, clubs, who ask to be heard to testify about violence sexual abuse, racism, discrimination, financial corruption. So, the objective of this platform is to say that all testimonies count and that even if they are not heard in the National Assembly, parliamentarians will be able to take note of these testimonies and therefore make concrete proposals to the end of this commission of inquiry.
What are the testimonies you receive about?
This can be sexual assault, this is the case with the Volleyball Federation. We received a report from the Chess Federation. We received a report of discrimination from the Automobile Federation. On the Muay-Thai Federations, it was more about the financial question. These are different types of testimonies and I think that today, unfortunately, there is almost no federation that has been spared by the testimonies that reach us. Even athletes who now live abroad have contacted us to tell us that they want to testify. The time allocated to us will not allow us to hear from everyone, but I think it is important to be able to offer them a space so that they can still give their testimony.
What do you want with this platform?
It’s transpartisan and Béatrice Bellamy also receives testimonies from her side. We will need to have a very broad overview of what is happening within this sports movement and these federations in order to be able to have proposals from a legislative point of view. It can also be regulatory. The testimonies that we were able to hear at the National Assembly are of the order of horror, we are beyond what we could imagine in terms of violence, whether sexual, physical, psychological. , racists. HAS one moment, we must say stop to all this, sanction the people who are the perpetrators and be exemplary at the federation level and listen to these victims who have been warning for years.