“He hit me on the chin and I had blood in my mouth. 90% of my teammates have been victims of physical violence ”. Shota C. (pseudonym), 23, agreed to recount the violence he suffered while playing baseball at his high school in Saitama, north of Tokyo. Chieko T. (pseudonym) also. A high-level athlete in her twenties, she suffered almost daily touching from her trainer. “Each time, I wanted to throw up. His scent, his hands, his eyes, his face, his voice, everything about him disgusted me. ”
These testimonies appear in a report titled « “I have been hit so many times that I can no longer count”: Abuse of underage athletes in Japan “, unveiled Monday, July 20 by the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The organization has gathered the testimonies of nearly 800 athletes, some of whom have participated in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. All testify to the ill-treatment suffered when they were minors, beatings but also deprivation of food and water, even sexual abuse.
“For decades, children have been brutalized and insulted in Japan, in the name of the trophies and medals they must win”, regrets Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at HRW.
A long list of cases of abuse
The study sounds like a reminder to a country where cases of athlete abuse regularly erupt.
- In 2018, the video of a coach of a high school baseball team in Nagoya, in the center of the country, hitting several players caused a stir.
- In 2013, the national women’s judo team, including judokats who participated in the London Olympics, reported beatings and insults from two coaches, including former world champion Ryuji Sonoda, during a preparatory course for the Olympics.
- The same year, the judoka Masato Uchishiba, Olympic champion in Athens and Beijing, was sentenced to five years in prison for rape and harassment of the judokats he trained at Kyushu University, in the southwest of the country.
- In 2012, a basketball player from a high school club in Osaka, west of the Archipelago, committed suicide because he could no longer bear the blows of his trainer, who saw there “A necessary measure to make the team stronger”. In 2007, a 17-year-old sumo wrestler succumbed to beatings during training.
- Between 1983 and 2016, at least 121 people died as part of judo practiced at school, reports HRW, “An unparalleled death rate in other developed countries”.
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