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Child Labour in Sport: Sport, Work and Child Exploitation
Peter Donnelly ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This book chapter looks at how sport has become work-like for children who show talent, especially those in pipelines towards professional or high performance sport. It argues that the more time children spend with adults in sport settings, the more harm they tend to experience. Some young athletes under 18, or even under 16, spend more time with coaches and in training than in school or with their parents. The chapter critiques early talent identification, early specialisation and intensive training, and summarises the harms children experience. It calls for children to be exempt from the autonomy of sport organisations and recognised as a protected class in sport.
Key points
- There appears to be a linear, though imperfect, relationship between time children spend with adults in sport settings and the harms young athletes experience.
- Professional and national team athletes, and those in the pipeline to high performance sport, spend the most time with adults in sport settings.
- Sport participation has become work-like for many talented children.
- Some athletes under 18, or under 16, spend more time with coaches and training than in school or with parents.
- The specificity and autonomy of sport organisations protects them from responsibility or blame for harms to children.
Limitations
The abstract does not name specific countries, data sources or methods, and it does not give numbers on how common the harms are. It is an argument and critique rather than a test of an intervention, so it cannot tell us what works to reduce harm.
Abstract
Abstract There appears to be a linear (although by no means perfect) relationship between the amount of time children spend with adults in sport settings and the harms experienced by so many young athletes. Children who are professional or national team athletes, and those in the pipeline towards professional and high performance sport, are likely to spend the greatest amounts of time with adults in those sport settings. This chapter outlines how sport participation has become so work-like for so many children who demonstrate talent in a sport. This can reach a point where some young athletes under the age of 18, or even under the age of 16, spend more time with coaches and training for sport than they spend in school or with their parents. Critiques of the system of early talent identification/early specialisation/intensive training and competition for children are followed by a summary of the types of harms experienced by children in that system. The specificity of sport and the autonomy of sport organisations protects those organisations from responsibility or blame for the harms experienced by children. This chapter concludes with a call to exempt children from the autonomy of sport organisations and to establish recognition of children as a protected class in sports.