Why female athletes don't feel safe while in athletics camps

Marathon star Joan Chelimo. [Courtesy/BBC] An Iten-based athlete is pushing for a multi-stakeholder approach to kick out predators posing as coaches to exploit budding stars. According to athletes and security agencies, training bases are still full of masqueraders preying on young girls and boys, hence resulting in Gender-Based Violence (GBV). Marathon star, Joan Chelimo said last weekend during a campaign dubbed Beyond Olympics in Iten that the war against GBV was far from over and called for strict guidelines and the kicking out of unlicensed individuals posing as coaches. Chelimo, a half marathon great who has won 21km races including Paris and Boston said GBV was a pandemic in sports. "We lost the likes of Agnes Tirop and Damaris Muthee who trained in Iten as well as Rebecca Cheptegei who I was with at the Paris Olympic Games," Chelimo said. The Kenyan-born Romanian star said female athletes are increasingly becoming independent-minded hence rattling some male counterparts and coaches who have controlled them for years. She told stakeholders that many women were losing their properties and that several of them were facing stigma instead of getting support. "We are going to camps to encourage women athletes to speak up. There are many people who come to Iten as coaches but are predators, preying on young girls. We have a team of survivors helping victims and following up on reported cases," said Chelimo. The Iten-based GBV advocate went on to say: "We hope that one day the family of Agnes Tirop will get justice. We are pushing for amendments to the laws to protect victims of GBV. We need support from government agencies and the federation so that victims can report freely and confidentially." Chelimo called for the establishment of safe homes for victims running away from exploitative partners. When victims are abused, she insisted, they have no safe spaces to run to. "We want agents to play a role in ending GBV by ensuring athletes' prizes due to female athletes are sent to them and not their spouses. Most female athletes are still being coached by their husbands and there is a need to certify the trainers so that we weed out the predators. "We want them to be certified by Athletics Kenya so that we have professional coaches and kick out predators who are taking advantage of young women," she said. She added that many of the physiotherapists in training bases were men massaging young girls who don't have enough money to pay for services and end up being exploited. Chelimo has been among athletes running a campaign to end GBV through the Tirop Angels, an organisation formed following the brutal killing of slain star Agnes Tirop in October 2021. French ambassador to Kenya Arnaud Suquet said France will be a valuable partner in the end-GBV cause. Suquet said France was working with Iten in partnership with the city of Miramas to train coaches as one way of professionalizing training. "France is working with Tirop Angels to end GBV. Ending GBV starts with proper training of coaches and that is why Miramas trained 12 coaches - 50 percent of them are women. We have 900 teacher coaches who have been trained on technical and medical aspects of training as well as gender equality," the envoy said. He added: "Sports is a vehicle for achieving parity in sports and not violence. We want to bring down global values at the Olympic Games to the grassroots." Acting Elgeyo Marakwet County Commissioner Julius Maiyo said there are several people masquerading as coaches especially in athletics. He said the predators are courting athletes with their eyes on exploiting them economically. "Most athletes have been suffering in silence. We want to thank organizations such as Tirop Angels for encouraging them to speak," said Maiyo.

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