The Human Rights Watch, a global organisation fighting injustice, has backed South Africa’s golden girl after IAAF’s new testosterone ruling.
The Human Rights Watch is taking a stand for Caster Semenya against the IAAF. Recently women’s rights director, Liesl Gerntholtz wrote a strongly worded letter to the IAAF President, Lord Sebastian Coe. She urged him to take a second look at the new IAAF Testosterone ruling stating that it is discriminating.
The Human Rights Watch is a non-profit, non-governmental human rights organisation made up of roughly 400 staff members around the globe. The staff consists of human rights professionals including country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics of diverse backgrounds and nationalities.
It was established in 1978 and works to provide accurate fact-finding, impartial reporting, effective use of media, and targeted advocacy, often in partnership with local human rights groups.
In her letter, Liesl starts off by saying,
“Despite claims from IAAF that the regulations will not prevent any women from competing in athletics, they do effectively force some women with intersex traits (or differences of sex development) to chose between undergoing medically unnecessary intervention to lower their testosterone levels or be precluded from participating in international sport.”
“Women with intersex variations have the same rights to dignity and bodily integrity as all women. But the new IAAF regulations coerce some women to undergo unnecessary medical intervention to alter their hormone levels simply because their naturally occurring testosterone is atypical.”
“We believe the IAAF regulations encourage violations of internationally-protected human rights, including the rights to privacy, health, bodily integrity, dignity, and non-discrimination.”
“Our own research on the experiences of people with intersex traits has found, institutional and medical treatment of this population is frequently motivated by prejudice presented as science.“
She packs a few well researched punches in her letter. The full letter is filled with detailed research that cites 19 various references, you can read it here. By calling out the IAAF’s new ruling, we have yet another organisation backing our Golden Girl!
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