Basketball Operations Manual - Basketball New Zealand

Harassment-Free Basketball Procedures
Sport gives a great deal of enjoyment to New Zealanders.
As well as being fun, sport can provide important opportunities for personal development.
Success in sport can be a source of personal achievement and national pride. In some
cases, sport can become a person’s livelihood.
Every participant in sport, in whatever role, has a right to participate in an environment
that is fun, rewarding, safe and healthy, and to be treated with respect, dignity and fairness.
This means that physical or verbal abuse, harassment of a sexual or non-sexual nature,
sexual abuse, and exploitation have no place in sport.
The policy and these procedures form part of a harassment-free strategy in basketball. The
strategy aims to create a safe environment by developing a system of dealing effectively and
appropriately with, and whenever possible, preventing harassment in basketball.
These procedures in particular have been developed to assist you to understand your obligations,
and to take the necessary risk management measures to protect your organisation
and its members from legal action in this area.
More importantly, they are intended to help you ensure that everyone involved in your
organisation — be it the athlete, coach, instructor, teacher, administrator, official, parent or
volunteer — gets the greatest possible enjoyment out of their sports participation and is safe
from harm.
What is Harassment?
Harassment is defined from the viewpoint of those being harassed. Whether the action was
intended as harassment or not, does not matter. Intention only matters when determining
what disciplinary action is appropriate.
Harassment is not:
• appropriate compliments;
• behavior based on mutual attraction;
• friendly banter which is mutually acceptable; or
• constructive coaching and feedback.
In most cases, harassment (including sexual harassment) is an attempt by one person to
inappropriately exert power over another person. Harassment ranges from mild conduct
such as gestures or comments to conduct which may be physical, forceful and violent. Examples
of harassing behaviors include (but are not limited to):
• written or verbal abuse or threats;
• the display of visual materials which are offensive;
• unwelcome remarks, jokes, comments, innuendo or taunting about such things as a person’s
looks, body, attire, age, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation;
• leering or other suggestive or obscene gestures;
• practical jokes which cause awkwardness or embarrassment, endanger a person’s safety or
negatively affect performance;
• unwanted physical contact including touching, petting, pinching or kissing;
• unwelcome sexual flirtations, advances, requests or invitations;
• sending offensive emails, letters or phone calls;
• deliberately excluding people with the intention of isolating or hurting them; or physical
or sexual assault.
100 2007 NBL Operations and Rules Manual