February 22 – The public pressure on the annulling of the FIFA life ban on former Haiti Football Federation (FHF) president Yves Jean-Bart for sexual abuse offences has intensified with Human Rights Watch and the Army of Survivors issuing a damning statement saying that FIFA is failing sex abuse survivors.
FIFA first suspended Jean-Bart and a number of FHF vice presidents in May 2020 before banning Jean-Bart for life in November 2020. Earlier this month the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in annulling the FIFA ban said evidence provided by Human Rights Watch and Fifpro was not “sufficiently evidentiary”.
This was despite dozens of whistleblowers, witnesses, and survivors having contacted FIFA, Fifpro, HRW and the media.
The statement says that evidence provided to CAS included “devastating testimonies about Jean-Bart coercing young female players into having sex with him, the confiscation of passports (a marker of human trafficking), and armed men thought to be affiliated with Jean-Bart threatening to kill anyone who testified about these abuses have emerged.”
One witness testimony described a workplace that was “Full of sexual abuse and exploitation. Teen girls became pregnant and had children by the president. All of the players, officials, and staff at the centre knew what was going on – and did nothing to protect us.”
FIFA has not yet said committed to an appeal to CAS and the Jean-Bart case raises huge questions over the FIFA Ethics process and the role of CAS as the recognised final arbiter in sports disputes.
The HRW statement argues that CAS “has proven to be an inadequate justice mechanism, for women athletes in particular. The arbitration mechanism’s terms of reference do not require it to take human rights into account, arbitrators have no trauma-informed approach or training, and the court makes decisions based upon sport federation rules that in many cases exclude human rights.”
“Since players first started reporting sexual abuse in Haiti’s national football federation, every step of the way has been unsafe for survivors,” said Julie Ann Rivers-Cochran, Executive Director for The Army of Survivors.
“Not only does reinstating Yves Jean-Bart put him back into a position of power, but it also creates a terrifying situation for the current survivors and all Haitian soccer athletes. FIFA and CAS have a duty of care for athlete survivors and whistleblowers, and they must make it safe to report abuse, and use a trauma-informed approach in Haiti and the many other national federations where sexual abuse is taking place. They cannot say they have created a safe place for athletes when reinstating Jean-Bart only further silences and minimizes the stories of those who reported.”
One of the issues has been that “CAS failed to provide basic witness protection, despite knowing that many athletes and federation staff had received death threats,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives and Human Rights Watch.
FIFA’s own whistleblower mechanisms are notoriously insecure with accused officials often hearing of complaints made against them and who made those complaints within hours of the complaint being filed. The Ethics process has increasingly become a tool used by FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s regime to control federations and dissident voices with the threat of investigation and suspension.
The Jean-Bart case takes the lack of protection for athletes and whistleblowers to a whole new level that is hard to accept in any civil or civilised society and its institutions.
Fifpro said: “Haitian players’ and whistle-blowers’ journey has been incredibly precarious and challenging. This latest development raises further questions about football’s ability to offer effective remedy for serious human rights violations.”
“How can survivors of sexual abuse be expected to report abuse to FIFA if this travesty of justice is the outcome,” Worden said.
“With the Women’s World Cup taking place this year, a harsh spotlight is shining on FIFA’s poor governance and inability to remove sexual abusers from sport.”
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