New York (AFP)

Created almost three years ago after a series of scandals, the US Center for SafeSport has become the armed wing of the fight against sexual abuse in sport in the United States, with already some successes despite recurrent criticism.

Larry Nassar, the doctor for the American gymnastics team accused of sexual violence by more than 300 athletes, had to break out before a project that had dragged on for several years.

Officially approved by the United States Congress, the American Center for Safe Sport became, in March 2017, the first independent organization specially mandated to tackle the problem of violence - verbal, physical, psychological and sexual - in the sport, off the field.

The Center benefits from a real power of sanction and can suspend or declare ineligible, temporarily or definitively, an athlete, a coach or an officer, which it has done for 627 of them since.

The French skater Morgan Cirès would be the subject of an investigation for obscene photos sent to a teenage skater, even if the Center does not communicate on his ongoing investigations.

The sanctioned members can seize an arbitral tribunal which has already invalidated suspensions, prohibitions or cancellations.

The Olympic sports federations are now required to transfer any new reports of sexual abuse to the Center, which then takes over the investigation.

"We are working hard to make sure the athletes know where to find us and how to contact us," said Ju'Riese Colon, the organization's executive director.

When it was created, the Center received, on average, around thirty reports per month. Three years later, it's more than 200.

Ju'Riese Colon speaks of a #MeToo effect and says it has noted "peaks" after each case of mediated sexual abuse, even not related to sport. "I do not expect the number of reports to decrease in the near future, unfortunately."

- "Cultural change" -

The challenge remains to cover an environment with 14 million people with a team of just over 50 employees.

This is one of the main criticisms of the Center, that of not having the means to achieve its ambitions, with a budget of $ 18 million this year.

The more so as to the mission of investigation and sanction is added the prevention mandate assigned to the organization, of private status.

Since its creation, the Center has designed, with professionals, a series of educational content accessible online for athletes, supervisors but also parents. Adults brought into contact with young people are obliged to undergo awareness training.

Ju'Riese Colon says he has found resistance on the ground, "because nobody wants to believe that these behaviors exist on their premises, in their cities and with their coaches." "It is our role to facilitate this change of" perception, "which will take time."

"I do not see them (...) changing the game," tempers Danielle Bostick, swimmer sexually assaulted by her trainer when she was a child and became an activist in the fight against sexual abuse of minors.

It considers the teaching material, advice and resources dedicated to their dissemination insufficient and criticizes the fact that the Center can only sanction individuals and not clubs or organizations.

"To me, SafeSport is used for marketing purposes (by the United States Olympic Committee) to give parents and athletes the false impression that they are safe."

Former Center President Shellie Pfohl resigned at the end of 2018, weeks after the publication of a USA Today survey showing that dozens of coaches who were banned from practicing were still in office.

"I see no other way" than to develop the Center, despite its shortcomings, said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Olympic swimming champion and founder of the organization Champion Women. "We cannot go back, to the system in which the athletes were + protected + by their federation, by their sport."

"We have tried for decades," she says. "It didn't work. Thousands of children were attacked."

"I realize that our organization, like the Olympic movement and the country as a whole, has a long way to go before generating real cultural change," said Ju'Riese Colon. "But the work that has been done for 20 years, for 5 years, has had an impact that I never imagined."

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