At the #metoo Olympics, organizers confront sexual abuse
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea - A Catholic nun waits eight hours each day at a folding table, ready for a call but praying nothing has happened to cause the phone to ring.
Her office, the "Gender Equality Support Centre," a tiny trailer tucked between a bathroom and a police post under the ski lift at the Phoenix Snow Park, is a nondescript acknowledgment of the revolution in women's rights that, outside the Olympic gates, is thundering through the world.
Sungsook Kim - who goes by her religious name, Sister Droste - speaks little English. But to describe her mission, she says the name of the American movement: "me too."
The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang arrives amid the reckoning that has brought down celebrities, politicians and the entire board of U.S.A Gymnastics. NBC star Matt Lauer was fired for sexual misconduct, and his accuser said the harassment began at the last Winter Olympics, in Sochi.
During the Summer Games in Rio, two athletes were accused of assaulting housekeepers. A horrified world recently watched dozens of women and girls, some of them Olympians, describe in detail how Larry Nassar, the gymnastics doctor, had sexually abused them for decades as layers of elite athletic organizations failed to stop it.
"The whole world just got a front row seat to a master class in trauma," said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a former Olympic swimmer and activist calling on Olympic committees to do much more to protect vulnerable athletes.
"This is what trauma does. This is what it looks like," she says. "It stops professional careers, it stops somebody's education, it stops people from being close to other people, it invades their ability to feel safe."
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A SOLUTION BEGINS
So this year, for the first time, there is an organized and advertised contingent of offices designed to help sexual assault victims dotted around the sprawling Olympics venues - from clinics that cater to world-class athletes to Sister Droste's four trailers, organized by the local community for the army of 14,000 volunteers, most of them young, 70 percent of them female.
"'#metoo' allowed us all to see that it's not the victim's fault, being sexually harassed. It's not because of their appearance. It gives courage to the victims," Droste said through a translator.
So far they have responded to four reports of harassment, Droste said, the details of which she could not describe because of confidentiality rules, but said they were not severe.
"Having equal rights," the sister said, "men and women, makes it possible for us to accomplish freedom."
Olympic organizers have finally decided it's time to get serious. On Sunday, Prince Feisal of Jordan, a board member on the International Olympic Committee, said the Olympic body should pursue the fight against sexual assault and harassment as seriously as it does doping.
"The current scandal begs the question: Why aren't we doing more?" he said.
The United States Olympic Committee has come under withering criticism in the wake of the Nassar abuse scandal. Aly Raisman, a three-time Olympic gold medalist assaulted by the doctor, publicly rebuked the committee for failing to spot and stop the abuse, and for not reaching out to the victims once it was made known.
This happened in a prosperous country with a powerful Olympic committee and the resources to protect athletes, Feisal said. "Imagine countries and federations who've got nothing."
The International Olympic Committee launched a program last year aimed at coaching athletic organizations around the world how to implement policies to protect vulnerable athletes. In 2016, they hastily put together a "safeguarding" program for the summer games in Rio, in which an officer was available to field allegations of abuse and route them to medical services or law enforcement.
But the plan was approved in June and the Olympics began in July, and they did not have time to effectively spread the word about the program, said Susan Greinig, the safeguarding officer.
As she watched the Nassar saga unfold on television, she remembers feeling a mix of regret and motivation.
"I just thought, if only we could have put this help in place earlier to save these people. But they are an example of future potential victims that we will save, that we will give a voice to," she said. "Out of every evil there can be some good that comes out of it."
This year, she has an office in the Olympic villages, and marches around with a pin on her jacket that reads: "Need to talk?" A sign is plastered to her office door says "I see, I hear, I speak." The posted hotline number for athletes to report sexual abuse routes to her cell phone and she checks it every few seconds.
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