Major sporting events, children and the media

Major sporting events can have a huge impact on children. But who is paying attention?

According to some estimates, as many as 1.5 million people, including children and their families, were displaced for the Beijing Olympic Games. For the Delhi Commonwealth Games, academic Siddharth Kara identified at least 14 cases of children involved in construction projects related to the games. Child displacement and exploitation are some of the unfortunate side-effects of major sporting events.

For those who work in sport and development, this may hardly seem like a new revelation. However, for the broader population, the level of awareness is unclear. In the context of the Children Win campaign, Terre des Hommes and researchers from the German Sport University looked at media coverage from 12 different countries, analysing keywords in relation to three events in 2014 – the Sochi Winter Olympics, Brazil FIFA World Cup and Glasgow Commonwealth Games – in a bid to quantify coverage of these issues.

Countries were grouped according to high, nascent or minimal awareness. Some, like the U.K. or Brazil, provided a large amount of search results. Others, like the Netherlands or Germany, fell somewhere in the middle. And others, like Russia, India or Italy paid little to no attention to the issue.

Key findings

The UK rated the highest of 12 countries assessed for quantity of human rights coverage, followed by World Cup hosts Brazil, then the US and the Netherlands. This is despite Brazil’s low ranking for press freedom
Russia came last in the ranking of human rights coverage with only 0.49% of the total, despite hosting the Sochi Winter Olympics that year
In a breakdown of the types of issues covered, police violence and sexual exploitation were among the most frequent
While at its highest in the two to five month period before an event, coverage of human rights issues during and after events peaks around the day of the opening ceremonies in all territories then almost completely dies out
Coverage of FIFA corruption allegations and a trend for developing countries to host events are thought to be behind an increase in coverage of human rights issues

These results allow us to guide further research and advocacy. For example, media must be properly targeted. In countries with higher awareness, detailed information may be appropriate. In countries with lower awareness, background information may be required.