At the UN, Nawal El Moutawakel Highlights Liberating Power of Sport in Women’s Lives
United Nations (New York) - International Olympic Committee (IOC) Vice-President, Nawal El Moutawakel, highlighted, at UN Headquarters in New York, the "extraordinary" power of sport to break barriers and change lives, particularly those of women.
Speaking at an event marking the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP), El Moutawakel underscored the role of sport as a driver of gender equality and social transformation.
The former Olympic champion —first Muslim, Arab, African, and Moroccan woman to win a gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics— underlined the various facets of sport’s impact on the emancipation and empowerment of women around the world.
“Fifty-four seconds is what it took for me to translate my dream to reality, changing my life and the lives of so many young women in my country,” she said at the event, held Wednesday under the theme “Sport: Building Bridges, Breaking Barriers” at the initiative of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Permanent Missions of Qatar and Monaco.
Those Games, she asserted, “allowed many women to express themselves, including myself. This is what I am implementing 40 years later in my daily life.”
El Moutawakel welcomed the “significant progress” achieved over recent years by the International Olympic Committee, recalling the 1995 creation of the IOC Working Group on “Women and Sport”, which has today evolved into a full-fledged commission dedicated to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion.
Today, 44% of IOC members are women, and every commission observes gender parity, she noted, pointing out that “for the first time in the IOC’s history of more than 100 years, we have a woman – Kirsty Coventry – as President.”
Reflecting on the evolution of gender parity at the Olympic Games, El Moutawakel stated that, through collaboration with numerous committed women, “we’ve transformed what was just a ratio of a little over 20% of women at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games into having 50% female representation at Paris 2024.”
Co-organized with the support of several partners, including UN Women and the Department of Global Communications (DGC), this event also highlighted sport as a universal language that fosters social inclusion, reduces isolation, promotes peace, and contributes to the realization of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
Celebrated annually on April 6, the IDSDP is also meant to highlight the role of sport in promoting social change and building peace.
Editorial team/le7tv
