“When selecting a newcomer, we will receive a pledge related to school violence, and if the details of the pledge are found to be false, we plan to impose severe punishment such as permanent expulsion.”
On the 16th, the Korean Volleyball Federation (KOVO) announced that it would create a rule that would impose the highest permanent disciplinary action on those involved in school violence.
This means that players who were violent in school will not be able to step on the professional volleyball stage.
The reason that KOVO even held an emergency response meeting and announced these measures is because of the’Happy Me Too’, which has made the public sensation recently.
On the 10th, an article posted on the online community, “These are the current volleyball players, the victims of abusive violence,” details the harassment the authors suffered, such as “they threatened with a knife”.
Sisters Lee Jae-young and Da-young Da-young, popular players in the professional volleyball league who were accused of being the perpetrators, acknowledged the past and issued an apology.
But the shocking thing didn’t end here.
On the 13th, a Hakpok Me Too article was posted on the Internet saying, “I was assaulted by an incumbent male volleyball player and had a testicular suture surgery.”
Song Myeong-geun and Shim Gyeong-seop of OK Financial Group, who were the perpetrators of this incident in the past, admitted and apologized through the club.
As some professional volleyball players were in school when they were in school, Hakpok caused social anger, and the Democratic Party’s representative Lee Nak-yeon said, “We will respond strictly and come up with preventive measures.”
Through the damage case of the late Choi Sook-hyun, who passed away last year, it has been relatively known that in some sports unemployment teams, managers and captains are violent against players.
However, the violence among student athletes in the school sports department or youth club team has not received much attention.
The reality is that student athletes are being harassed not only by their leaders, but also by their seniors or classmates.
Sports critic Lee Jong-hoon said, “If you look at the subject who commits violence, you are leaders, seniors, and classmates with excellent ability.” I pinched.
As a result of a full survey on the human rights status of student athletes released by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea in October last year, 8,440, or 14.7% of the 50,000 student athletes, experienced physical violence.
Sexual harassment and sexual violence cases were also counted as 3,829 (6.7%).
The perpetrators of physical violence were mainly coaches, and the perpetrators of sexual harassment and sexual violence had many senior players.
Most of the victims responded passively to violence for reasons such as “fear of retaliation” or “because they do not know how to deal with it”.
Ex-athletes also say that various violence among student athletes is not just a problem in the volleyball world.
Mr. A, who was a former swimming athlete, said, “The seniors caught and harassed him for trivial reasons such as’I don’t greet him well’, and he gave me spirit in the name of training.”
Mr. A testified that the leaders and parents were aware of this, but that he had tolerated the harassment of the senior players in order not to be dazzled.
Mr. B, who was a player in the ball game professional league, also confessed that he experienced countless harassment, such as the ‘eat up’ of his seniors when he was in school.
However, Mr. B pointed out one thing to consider while looking at the ripples of the volleyball group’s Me Too.
Because perceptions of violence have changed with the times, in the case of some of the acts that were exposed as harassment, even the victims would not have recognized it as violence at the time.
Nevertheless, it is an evil practice that must be eradicated to make the victims suffer from past memories even after they have given up their dreams or become adults.
Sports critic Lee Jong-hoon said, “In order to prevent recurrence, there must be a certain punishment enough to give a message that success and life as an athlete can end if a student commits a harassment. Only by being conscious can the correct countermeasures come out.”
One of the Hakkeok Me Too articles contained a scream, “Even if you give all of your property, none of the wounds suffered by the victims will disappear.”
Shouldn’t there be any more bruising of the minds and bodies of young student athletes?