Modern office buildings and stores, all empty, are among the “white elephants” in the city of Itaboraí, near Rio de Janeiro, left by an aborted petrochemical and oil refinery complex in southeast Brazil. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO , Aug 3 2016 (IPS)

An era of mega-events and mega-projects is coming to a close in Brazil with the Olympic Games to be hosted Aug. 5-21 by Rio de Janeiro. But the country’s taste for massive construction undertakings helped fuel the economic and political crisis that has it in its grip.

It is no mere coincidence that President Dilma Rousseff, suspended during her ongoing impeachment trial over charges of breaking budgetary regulations, will face the final vote in the Senate this same month.

Over the past decade, large-scale investment projects and public works, some not yet finished, others even abandoned, have driven the economy, triggered controversies, and fed the dreams and frustrations of Brazilians, mirroring and accelerating the rise and fall from power of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT).

The country’s economic growth and the international prestige of then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) played a decisive role in the 2007 choice of Brazil as host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Two years later, Rio de Janeiro was selected as the venue for the 2016 Olympic Games.

In 2007 Rio hosted the Pan American Games, which kicked off the string of sports mega-events in Brazil, including the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2013.

The wave of mega-infrastructure projects also began at the same time, in response to the needs of the energy and transportation industries, mainly for the export of mining and agricultural commodities.

Large hydropower dams, railways, ports, the paving of roads and the diversion of the São Francisco River to ease drought in the arid Northeast, as well as numerous public works in cities, formed part of the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC), which included tax breaks and credit facilities.

Rousseff, who also belongs to the PT, succeeded Lula in the presidency after an election campaign in which she was referred to as “the mother of PAC” – an allusion to her skill in implementing and managing the programme that involved thousands of construction projects around the country, as Lula’s chief of staff.

In the oil industry, the 2006 discovery of enormous offshore petroleum deposits below a two-kilometre thick salt layer under rock, sand and deep water in the Atlantic prompted the launch of another major wave of construction, including four large refineries, two petrochemical complexes, and dozens of shipyards to produce oil drilling rigs, offshore platforms and tankers.

The two biggest refineries, in the Northeast, were cancelled in 2015, resulting in some 800 million dollars in losses. Another is partially operating.

Work on the last one – and on the petrochemical complex of which it forms part, near Rio de Janeiro – was interrupted, leaving empty a number of office buildings and hotels that were built in surrounding towns and cities to service an industrial boom and prosperity that never arrived.

The Belo Monte hydroelectric plant’s turbine room in the northern Brazilian state of Pará, under construction in 2015. The mega-project is to be finished in 2019. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Most of the shipyards went under or shrunk to a minimum. In Niterói, Rio de Janeiro’s sister city, half of the 10 shipyards closed and over 80 percent of their 15,000 workers were laid off.

Possibly the house of cards of this fast-track development would have come tumbling down regardless, but several destructive factors compounded the problem and accelerated the approach of the disaster.

Oil prices plunged in 2014, simultaneously with the outbreak of the Petrobras bribery scandal that has ensnared hundreds of legislators and business executives.

In addition, the governments of Lula and Rousseff attempted to curb inflation by blocking domestic fuel price increases – another blow to the finances of Petrobras, the state oil company, which almost collapsed under the weight of so many difficulties.

The railways did not fare any better. Construction of two railroads – one private and another public – designed to cross the impoverished but fast-growing Northeast at different latitudes ground to a halt and are candidates to become white elephants due to the suspension of mining industry projects, whose output they were to transport.

As a result, the construction of a new seaport and the expansion of two others were also suspended. 

At least the hydroelectric plants are in the process of being completed. But they are suffering the ups and downs of the power industry. There are delays in the installation of power lines and electricity consumption has slumped as a result of the economic recession that broke out in 2014, expanding spare capacity and driving up losses in power generation and distribution plants.

The four largest hydropower plants, built on fragile rivers in the Amazon rainforest, are facing accusations of causing environmental damage and violating the rights of local populations: indigenous people, riverbank dwellers and fishing communities.

Belo Monte, the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam, with a capacity to generate 11,233 MW, was accused of “ethnocidal actions” against indigenous people by the public prosecutor’s office and is facing 23 lawsuits on charges of failing to live up to legal requirements.

At the same time, it is also criticised by proponents of hydropower, because it will generate, on average, only 40 percent of its potential. With a relatively small reservoir, an alternative that was chosen to reduce the environmental impact, it will be at the mercy of the marked seasonal variations in water flow in the Xingú River, where the flow is 20 times lower in the dry season than the rainy season.

Roads have not formed part of the recent wave of mega-projects. Although they are being paved and widened, they were originally built in earlier waves of construction projects, in the 1950s and 1970s.

Brazil’s addiction to massive construction projects was probably born with the emergence of Brasilia, built in a remote, inhospitable location over 1,500 km from the biggest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in just five years, during the administration of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961).

This bold feat was completed with the construction of roads running from the new capital in all directions.

But these long roads that cut across the country didn’t become paved highways, with proper bridges, until decades later.

Seen as a success story, Brasilia has prompted politicians to seek to make their mark with major construction projects, although the city was only part of the broader plan of Kubitschek, who pushed forward the development of Brazil’s steel industry by spurring the growth of the automotive industry.

The widespread belief that Brasilia was the big driver of settlement and development of the west and north of the country ignores the role played by the expansion of agriculture.

The 1964-1985 military dictatorship later fed the ambition of turning Brazil into a great power, with a nuclear programme that took three decades to build two power plants, the construction of two of the world’s five biggest hydroelectric plants, and roads to settle the Amazon.

The Trans-Amazonian highway, which was designed to cut across northern Brazil to the Colombian border but is incomplete and impassable for large stretches during the rainy season, is a symbol of failed lavish projects that helped bring down the dictatorship.

The origins of the megalomania can also be traced to the 1950 FIFA World Cup, for which the Maracana Stadium was built in Rio de Janeiro – for decades the largest in the world – holding held up to 180,000 spectators back then, more than double its current capacity.

The historic defeat that Brazil suffered at the hands of Uruguay in the final match in 1950, a devastating blow never forgotten by Brazilians, did not keep this country from hosting the 2014 World Cup, building new stadiums to suffer yet another shattering defeat, this time to Germany, which beat them 7-1 in the semi-finals.

Now, in the grip of an economic crisis expected to last for years, Brazil is unlikely to embark on new megaprojects. And the hope that they can drive development will have been dampened after so many failed projects and the heavy environmental, social and economic criticism and resistance.

The recently rebuilt Maracaná stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Rio de Janeiro government CC BY 3.0

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 9 2013 (IPS)

With three years to go to the 2016 Olympic Games, hundreds of athletes in the Brazilian city that will host the games were evicted from the only public track field, and have had nowhere to train for the past six months.

The mega-construction projects underway to provide Rio de Janeiro with the infrastructure needed to host the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games have even affected athletes who aspire to compete in 2016.

“They decided to demolish the only public athletics stadium in the state of Rio de Janeiro. And the sports community was not even given advance notice,” the president of the state athletics federation, Carlos Alberto Lancetta, told IPS.

The stadium he was referring to, the Célio de Barros arena, was built in the 1970s as part of the Maracaná sports complex, which was inaugurated for the 1950 world football championship.

The iconic Maracaná stadium, a symbol of Rio, is undergoing a privatisation process, and its administration will be granted in concession to a consortium of private companies for 35 years.

The Célio de Barros athletics arena, covering 25,000 square metres, had a capacity for 9,000 spectators and a track that was upgraded for the 2007 Pan American Games.

The 800 athletes and students who worked out every day at the complex now have nowhere to train, because the concession involves the demolition of the track, the Olympic swimming pool and even a public school that operates within the complex.

Several athletes with Olympic aspirations had to abandon the complex to train in public parks and military installations, Lancetta complained.

“The Olympic city is losing its athletes. The situation is chaotic; Brazil’s track and field discipline is dying,” he said.

Lancetta, who has been in the field of athletics since 1962, is a former coach who now presides over the Rio de Janeiro federation. He says the discipline has never faced such bad conditions in Brazil as it does today.

Of the 600 athletes who used to train in the stadium, 150 were high performance and several competed in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, he said.

The consortium that won the concession plans to build a new athletics arena and Olympic swimming pool. Meanwhile, the athletes were transferred to the João Havelange Olympic Stadium, popularly known as Engenhão, which opened in 2007 and was leased for 20 years to the Botafogo football club.

But in March, the authorities temporarily shut down Engenhão because of structural flaws in the roof.

The improvised solution found for the athletes was to send them to train in public parks and military installations.

Lancetta said the Célio de Barros stadium should not have been closed down until a new Olympic arena and pool had been built.

But they are not set to be completed until a month ahead of the Olympic Games, and 30 months after the bidding opens in August.

This is “genocide against Olympic sports, and we can’t do anything to stop it. The Olympic Games aren’t doing Brazil’s athletes any favours,” said Lancetta.

Jan. 9 was a day that many track and field athletes and coaches will never forget, because when they showed up at the Maracaná complex, they found that the doors were closed.

Former athlete and coach Edneida Freire was not even able to get inside to collect the materials she uses in the activities she carries out with children, adolescents and the disabled, partly with the aim of discovering new talent.

“They evicted us,” Freire told IPS. “They didn’t even give us any notice; we just got here one day and the gate was closed.”

She feels she is in mourning because many of her students can no longer attend the classes she now gives in public squares, because of the lack of safety.

“Many of them showed promise,” she said. “The great majority were boys and girls from the favelas (shantytowns), and some had problems with the law, and they were practicing sports as a socio-educational activity. All of that is at risk today.”

But Freire still hopes to return someday to Célio de Barros, after the new complex is built. “We couldn’t be any worse off than we are now; we have nowhere to train and compete,” she said.

The “people’s World Cup and Olympics committee”, which groups some 50 social movements, NGOs and trade unions, as well as academics, believes there is still time to turn the situation around, at least partly.

“They’re going to build a parking lot and shopping centre there. They want to boost property values in the area. They announced that they would build another building, but they won’t. It’s all just empty promises,” Committee member Marcelo Edmundo told IPS.

Top school to be closed

The 350 students at a public school that has functioned in the Maracaná complex for nearly 50 years are also facing imminent eviction.

The Friedenreich municipal school – named after football player Arthur Friedenreich (1892-1969) – is ranked the fourth best public school in the state.

It is not clear where the students and teachers are to go. They have to be off the school premises by year-end.

“We will go when the company granted the concession builds us a new school. They want to drag us to another school,” said Carlos Ehlers, a representative of the school’s committee of parents, students and alumni.

Ehlers said one of the biggest problems is that the school has a classroom for students with disabilities.

There is a lack of dialogue with the construction company, he said. “The concessionaire has already decided that we have to go. They said there was no chance of us staying here. But today, I think we have a 50 percent probability of avoiding eviction.”

The conditions of the concession, presented in November 2012, stated that the company that won the bid was to invest 210 million dollars in the complex by 2016, including the demolition and reconstruction of the pool, the Célio de Barros track and gymnasium, and the school.

The bidding process, which was won by a consortium made up of the Brazilian companies IMX, Odebrecht and AEG Administração de Estádios, was challenged in court.

The prosecutor’s office argued that there were irregularities in the plans for the administration of the complex, and questioned the need to demolish the existing installations.

Unhappy with her employer of five years, Chikako Harada, 34, quit three months ago and has just started on a new job with a large Internet sales company. 

“My English language capabilities give me an advantage in Japan’s difficult job market,” she explained. 

Harada may not represent the norm among female workers, but experts say she reflects the new determination of young Japanese women to make their way in a difficult job market through flexibility. 

“Women in their twenties and thirties are redefining the old labour model that worshipped lifetime employment in the male-dominated corporate world,” says Midori Ito, head of Action Centre for Working Women, an organisation that supports females in the labour market. 

“By being able to handle different jobs women are ushering fresh ideas into a bleak job market,” says Ito. 

As Japan grapples with growing unemployment, with companies preferring  part-time hiring to beat the economic recession, women are emerging as important role models, say labour experts. 

Prof. Fumio Ohtake, researcher on labour issues at the prestigious Osaka University, explained to IPS that the employment crunch has turned attention on conventional female work profiles marked by the sort of flexibility that can beat shrinking job opportunities. 

“In the male-dominated corporate world, female workers have commonly been relegated to the sidelines. It’s time to review the old image and take a lesson from the way women juggle their careers to survive,” Ohtake said. 

Japan’s 1985 equal opportunity law is rarely invoked and companies have  continued discriminatory practices with impunity. As a result, Japan has consistently ranked as the most unequal of the world’s rich countries, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s “gender empowerment measure.” 

Japan’s lifelong employment system, viewed as the lynchpin in Japan’s postwar economic miracle, favoured men based on their traditional role as family breadwinners. 

But, as companies cut back against a long economic recession the traditional job market is steadily being replaced by part-time or contract jobs, where women may stand a better chance. 

Indeed, new job opportunities over the past few years have mostly been part-time, and contract jobs now account for almost 34 percent of Japan’s 63 million labour force, including unemployed people. 

Women now comprise 70 percent of part-time employees, working mostly in the welfare and service sectors as homecare providers and in the restaurant business where salaries are on an hourly basis with few benefits. 

Aware of rising public anxiety over jobs, the government in August pledged to examine the status of part-timers and non-regular workers with a view to getting companies to offer full-time employment status for employees on the rolls for more than five years. 

In October, Japan will also raise the minimum wage to seven dollars per hour in a bid to raise the income of part-time workers. 

But experts are critical of the new measures as being piecemeal and not supporting long-term changes in the job market. 

Ito has long campaigned for ‘decent work’, an international concept that calls for employment that respects the rights of workers. Ito beleives that the job crisis can become a catalyst for both male and female workers to lead stable and content lives. 

“Younger women such as Harada, with her determination to find new jobs, reflect the desire among single women – and now an increasing number of younger men – to cope with the risk of joblessness by developing new work ethics and standards,” she told IPS. 

Yoshiko Otsu, head of the Society of Working Women, an established organisation that provides support for female part-time workers, acknowledged to IPS the need for such changes to cope with the increasing hardships. 

“The current situation is difficult for women workers whose status makes them vulnerable. The government must support women who want to break free of traditional shackles, but the new laws that promise to force companies to give them full-time jobs are unreal,” she said. 

Otsu’s organisation fields hundreds of inquiries each day from female contract employees who complain of unpaid salaries and sexual and power harassment from their male bosses. 

She is critical of new regulations by the government, saying that companies could easily resort to terminating the services of their female workers before they complete five years – making women even more insecure in the job market. 

While concrete statistics for new opportunities for women have not been recorded, existing data by researchers indicate that females are becoming leaders in the niche for opportunities in community work. 

Miki Hara, owner of ‘Drop’, a non-profit company based in Yokohama that offers services to mothers with young children, agrees. “My own experience has shown that it is possible to be financially independent by being innovative,” she explained to IPS. 

“The idea of starting a company that provides space for new mothers and their children to do things together came to me after rising public debt led to new official policies that recognised that bureaucrats alone cannot solve community issues,” she said. “We have to learn to support ourselves.”   

Drop now employs five fulltime workers and more than 30 part-timers. The going is not easy but Hara says her company has a pioneering role in community work.

Victorine Fomum, Cameroon’s 2005 African table tennis champion, was given 25 dollars by the government for her achievement. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDÉ, Aug 22 2012 (IPS)

Victorine Fomum is Cameroon’s 2005 African table tennis champion. She often used to “train without rackets, without balls, without appropriate clothing and without good tables.” But despite this, she won gold at the 2005 African Nations Championship. And as a reward for her achievement the government handed her a cheque – for 25 dollars.

“You can imagine what happens at local level. I used to frequently earn 10 dollars as prize money – for winning gold! If I was not also a civil servant, maybe I might have fled too,” she told IPS.

She was referring to the seven Cameroonian athletes who disappeared from the London Olympic Games on Aug. 7. Fomum understands first hand why they did so.

“Training conditions here are horrible,” she said, “The athletes certainly have a right to desire better conditions.”

The athletes – five boxers, a swimmer and a footballer – disappeared from the Olympic village, and later resurfaced requesting asylum in the United Kingdom. They said they did not wish to return to their West African home nation because of the difficult training conditions.

One of the boxers, Thomas Essomba, told the BBC that his country was not able to offer him the opportunities that the UK can. “All we demand is to become champions. England offers the best opportunities for us. The most important issue now is to find sponsors and join boxing clubs,” he said.

Even football, the country’s most popular sport – in 1990 the country became the first African team to reach a football World Cup quarterfinal – has bad infrastructure and suffers from a lack of funds.

Cameroon is currently ranked 59th in the world by the International Football Federation, FIFA – eight spots ahead of South Africa, which has significantly more resources. South Africa will host the 2013 African Nations Cup at a cost of 400 million dollars, 300 million of which will be paid for by the country’s Football Association.

But back in Cameroon, Simon Lyonga, a sports analyst with the state broadcaster Cameroon Radio Television, told IPS that local football players earn a mere 25 dollars a month.

And while other athletes do not earn salaries here, local competitions award low prize money. Gold medallists in Cameroon frequently earn as little as six dollars.

Even in a country where, according to the World Bank, 40 percent of Cameroonians live below the poverty line of 1.25 dollars a day, six dollars in prize money is considered very low.

“These are not conditions that would keep any youth around,” Fondo Sikod, a professor of economics at the University of Yaounde II, told IPS.

Fomum knows all about the limited financial reward. She pointed to her display shelf of more than 50 trophies, most of them awards for winning first place.

“On the basis of all this, you may think that I am rich. But I tell you, all the training only ended with the glory of winning. It has very little to do with financial reward, which is quite frustrating.”

The president of the Cameroon Olympic Committee, Kalkaba Malboum, admitted that the country lacked good training facilities.

“We don’t have good training conditions as in other countries. As a result, our athletes will not hesitate to leave for other countries with better training conditions that can improve their performance, meet their dreams of becoming professional and earn more money to improve their living conditions as well as those of their families,” he said on state television on Aug. 10.

One example of a lack of good infrastructure is the Ahmadou Ahidjo Stadium, which was constructed to host the African Nations Cup in 1972. It is still Cameroon’s main stadium, even though it is frequently suspended from international use by FIFA because it has not been maintained.

“The failure to build sport infrastructure in the country is just a result of the lack of political will, and not the absence of financial resources,” Lyonga said.

He said sports, particularly football, brought financial resources into the country. Part of these resources, Lyonga said, is meant to go towards the construction and maintenance of local sports infrastructure.

“In 2010, Cameroon got 800,000 dollars from its participation in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. How the money was used is anyone’s guess,” he said.

Cameroon is expected to register economic growth of 5.2 percent for 2012, up from 4.8 percent in 2011. And Malboum hopes that the government will invest more in the sports sector.

Currently, the Chinese government is co-financing the 661-million-dollar construction costs of four stadia. In addition, there are plans to construct a National Olympics Preparation Centre in Obala, on the outskirts of the country’s capital Yaoundé.

Meanwhile, athletes here hope that the mindset towards sport sponsorship will change. Currently local athletes do not receive sponsorship.

“Each athlete struggles on his or her own,” Fomum said. She added that while Cameroonians loved sports and winning, they balked at the idea of investing in it. So she had to use her own money to pursue her sporting career.

“My dad told me that achievers must always brave the odds.”

Olympic torch arriving at Tretherras School, Newquayon. Credit: Bobchin1941/CC by 2.0

By Isabelle de Grave and Stephanie Parker
NEW YORK, Jul 21 2012 (IPS)

As the 2012 London Olympics gears up to open on Jul. 27, criticism of the longstanding partnership between the Games and sponsor McDonald’s has stolen a small portion of the limelight.

It’s not only civil society activists protesting the fast food giant this year, but local politicians.

“London won the right to host the 2012 Games with the promise to deliver a legacy of more active, healthier children across the world,” the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, who recently proposed a motion to exclude McDonald’s, Coca-Coca-Cola and others from the Games, told the 25-member Labour-dominated London Assembly.

”Yet the same International Olympic Committee that awarded the games to London persists in maintaining sponsorship deals with the purveyors of high-calorie junk that contributes to the threat of an obesity epidemic.”

The McDonald’s marketing strategy means that investment in sporting education goes hand in hand with the sale of low-priced, high-calorie fast food. In the UK, the company is offering up to 117,000 dollars to local football clubs.

“McDonald’s anticipated the criticism around its junk food 30 to 40 years ago. It spent those decades building a structure and good will to deflect criticism about the health impact of its products,” Sara Deon of Corporate Accountability International told IPS, highlighting McDonald’s sponsorship of the Games as a clear example of this.

McDonald’s has been an official sponsor of the Olympics since 1976. The company recently had its contract extended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to 2020.

Coca-Cola has also been a partner of the games since 1926. According to Benjamin Seeley of the International Olympic Committee, the company “sponsors more than 250 physical activity and nutrition education programmes in more than 100 countries”.

The Olympics rely on such commercial partnerships for more than 40 percent of revenues, and McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are two of the leading contributors.

McDonald’s did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the quality of its food in relation to the dietary needs of adults and children, and criticism of its Olympics sponsorship.

However, physicians and nutrition advocates have also expressed concern over both companies as official sponsors, particularly in the context of rising obesity in the UK.

There have been plans to boycott McDonald’s sponsorship of the games by civil society campaigners who deem it unworthy of inheriting the prestige of the Olympics as a supplier of fat, sugar and manipulative marketing initiatives.

Ceci Charles-King, an advocate for food justice, told IPS, “I worry about the message (sponsorship) sends to children and adults. McDonald’s is hydrogen, salt and empty calories. Coca-Cola is sugar, fructose corn syrup and empty calories.”

The Academy of Royal Medical Colleges recently declared that sponsorship by the fast food giant sends the wrong message to people in the UK, which has the most overweight population in Europe with 22 percent of Britons now considered obese.

When a customer goes to the U.S. McDonald’s website to look at the nutritional value associated with “happy meals” for kids, it only shows the calorie, fat and protein intake. The webpage omits saturated fat, salt, vitamin and sugar content and the user must navigate to another section to find the information.

“The food continues to be high in sugar, fat and salt…the so-called healthier options do little for people that are seeking truly healthy options,” Deon told IPS.

Selecting an example from the menu, she said that, “The fruit and maple porridge contains more grammes of sugar than a snickers (candy bar).”

“They are little more than a vehicle to sell its bread and butter products: burgers, chips and fizzy drinks,” she added.

According to Deon, McDonald’s’ investment in programmes to promote physical activity “fall well short of the meaningful change that we need to address the epidemic of diet-related disease and McDonald’s needs to address the core issue of ending its marketing to kids.”

The McDonald’s Olympic restaurant, located in the Athlete’s Village, is the largest in the world, seating up to 1,500 people. It is expected to serve around 14,000 people a day during the Games, and will be offering free Olympic-themed happy meal toys to children.

Asked how children might avoid junk food buoyed by the positive image of the Olympics, Charles-King said it may be as simple as “(showing) the child how to cook so they can make better food choices”.

As far as athletes are concerned, Jill McDonald, UK chief executive of McDonald’s, has commented on the busy location of the restaurant in the Athlete Village, stating that athletes know more than anyone what they should be eating.

Benjamin Seeley told IPS that, “The IOC only enters into partnerships with organisations that work in accordance with the values of the Olympic movement.”

In June, the London Assembly has passed a motion calling for stricter criteria to assess suitable Olympic sponsors. New rules would exclude high-calorie food and beverage producers from sponsorship roles, ending the age-old relationship between McDonald’s and the Olympics.

This year is not the first time that Olympic sponsors have come under scrutiny. In 2008, human rights activists called for a boycott to end sponsorship of McDonald’s and other restaurants.

Food retailers are not the only sponsors to face opposition this year. Indian athletes and officials will be skipping the opening and closing ceremonies to protest Dow Chemical’s involvement with the Games. Dow is the owner of Union Carbide, whose 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India killed more than 22,000 people and polluted soil and water sources for years to come.

The International Olympic Committee has said it is in talks with Saudi Arabia, after Human Rights Watch called for Riyadh to be barred from participating in the London Olympic Games.

The international rights organisation’s statement on Tuesday came in response to Saudi Arabia’s announcement, reversing an earlier decision that it would not send any female athletes to compete in the London Olympics.

“We are still talking to the Saudi NOC (National Olympic Committee) and remain confident of a positive outcome,” the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said in a statement to the Associated Press news agency on Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on its website: “The International Olympic Committee should bar Saudi Arabia from participating in the 2012 Games because of its clear violation of the Olympic Charter.”

The Olympic Charter states that the games seek “to encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women”.

With just over two weeks until the Olympics start on Jul. 27, the pan-Arab Saudi-owned daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that no women had qualified in the three fields (track, equestrian and weightlifting) at the London games for which male Saudi athletes would be representing the country.

But the Saudi embassy in London had previously announced in late June that “qualified” female candidates would be allowed to compete, saying that the Saudi NOC would “oversee participation of women athletes who can qualify”.

The possibility of female participation in the games has been impacted by contradictory statements to the media.

Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, the head of the Saudi NOC, said last week that Saudi sportswomen had indeed been given the go-ahead to compete in the Olympics.

He clarified in comments published in Saudi’s Al-Jazirah newspaper they may only do so by “wearing suitable clothing that complies with Sharia”, “the athletes’ guardians agree and attend with them” and that they do not mix with men at the games.

A month earlier, however, the prince had said he would “not endorse female participation”, as reported in Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National.

‘Do the right thing’

“It’s not that the Saudis couldn’t find women athletes, it’s that their discriminatory policies have so far prevented one from emerging,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at HRW.

“But there is still time for Saudi Arabia to do the right thing and allow women to participate in the London Games by including women in the ‘universality’ slots that don’t require advance qualification.”

“The bottom line is that Saudi Arabia broke its promise, is breaking the rules, and should absolutely not be allowed to participate in the London 2012 Games while excluding women from its team,” said Worden.

The organisation called for the IOC to bar the Gulf country as it had banned Taliban-led Afghanistan in 2000 for not allowing women to participate in any sport.

HRW also called on the organisation to “set a timeline and benchmarks for introducing physical education for girls in public and private schools, allowing the creation of women’s gyms and sports clubs, and creating women’s sections in the Sports Ministry and the National Olympic Committee”.

“Saudi Arabia’s discriminatory policies toward women are at the root of its failure to send female athletes to the London Games,” Worden said.

Worden called on the kingdom to be barred from the Olympics “until it ends the policies that deprive millions of Saudi women and girls of basic rights”.

Single male-only team

The decision by Saudi Arabia not to allow its female athletes to compete in the games makes it the only country that will not send women to the London Olympics.

Qatar and Brunei, like Saudi Arabia, have fielded all-male teams at previous Olympics. But both countries have confirmed that their teams in London will include women. Qatar hosted the 2011 Arab Games, which included female participation, noted the HRW statement.

Qatar announced it planned to send a women’s team to London made up of shooter Bahia Al-Hamad, swimmer Nada Wafa Arkaji and sprinter Noor al-Malki. Brunei will send hurdler Maziah Mahusin.

If Saudi Arabia chooses to overturn the recent decision and uphold its June commitment by sending a female athlete to the international sporting event, it would mark a first for the country.

Dalma Malhas, an equestrian contestant and one of the country’s only female athletes, was ruled out of the competition last month due to an injury.

About 10,500 athletes are expected to compete in London, representing more than 200 national Olympic committees.

If some arrangement can be made for the Saudis to send women, all national Olympic teams in London would include women athletes – for the first time in Olympic history.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.