MEPs champion equal rights at Games

Date: 18/07/1996

By Rory Watson

SOME of the most memorable moments in the history of the Olympic Games have been provided by female competitors.

The youthful exuberance of the former Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut, the bitter rivalry between Zola Budd and Mary Decker Slaney, and the graceful running of Marie-José Perec have delighted spectators over the years.

But although the celebrities will be there, large numbers of gifted women athletes will be absent from the Atlanta Olympic Games opening tomorrow (19 July) because their governments, largely for religious reasons, have refused to send them - prompting calls for action from MEPs.

At the Games in Barcelona four years ago, 35 countries sent all-male teams and only 2,108 of the 9,368 athletes were women. With a record 197 countries and 11,000 participants descending on Atlanta for the centenary of the modern Olympics, equal opportunity campaigners fear that the number of men-only delegations will be as high, if not higher.

“If you look at what is happening in the world, things are getting worse and I feel that the figures could be even worse in Atlanta than in Barcelona. This is really shocking and against basic Olympic principles,” said Dutch MEP Nel van Dijk, who chairs the European Parliament's women's rights committee.

The Parliament has called on the EU to withhold any “Union support or cooperation, whether material, financial or in any other form, from countries which effectively implement 'gender discrimination' by barring female citizens from participating in the Olympic Games”.

Such a move would affect the Union's aid and trade links with several countries in the Middle East and with its Lomé Convention partners, since many African, Caribbean and Pacific countries send only single-sex teams.

For some participating nations, justification for the absence of women from the Olympics is to be found in the teachings of Islam. For others the reason is financial.

But critics believe both explanations reflect the more fundamental problem of how women are treated in such societies. They also argue that neither can fully explain Uruguay's decision, for instance, to send a 23-strong male team and no female athletes to Barcelona.

MEPs are also pressing the Union to call for a ban on participation in any future Olympics by countries which practise 'gender discrimination'.

They are equally critical of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) itself for failing to implement its own charter fully. This encourages athletes of all nations, irrespective of their culture, religion or race, to participate in the world's premier athletic event.

For some, such as Dutch Liberal MEP Jessica Larive, the IOC itself is not totally blameless.

She told MEPs last week that the Olympic Committee had just one female administrator in its ranks.