AIBA makes significant changes towards gender equality
June 21st, 2018 / IBA
Today, the International Boxing Federation (AIBA) announced the successful implementation of important changes made to its policy in favour of gender equality in boxing. In an effort to promote and encourage female participation throughout the sport, AIBA took a big step forward by increasing its quotas for women, both in the ring and in the executive board.
On the sports side, last year it was decided to increase the women weight classes from three to five for the Olympic Games competition to align with Agenda 2020. This change will be reflected from the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as the number of female boxers is expected to be at least doubled compared to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympic Games. This affirms AIBA’s commitment to promote female boxing worldwide.
AIBA anticipates 2018 to be an exciting one for women’s boxing with the Women World Championships taking place in November, in New Delhi, India. This event being an open tournament, it is expected to be the biggest yet and is an opportunity for women boxers to compete at the highest level.
On the executive level, AIBA’s Congress passed a motion that will ensure that a minimum of 6 positions (out of the 28 council positions) will be held by women. This new policy will be in effect for the November AIBA Congress elections. In addition, the AIBA Executive Committee has plans to include at least one female representative in each AIBA Commission.
Gafur Rahimov, Interim President of AIBA, said “Fostering gender equality within our organisation and our sport is a top priority. Female inclusion at all levels of Boxing is important to us, by implementing these new policies at the grassroots and executive level we are ensuring continued development of our sport for the future.”
Tom Virgets, Executive Director of AIBA, said “These successful implementations demonstrate the strong will of the AIBA leadership in fostering and promoting female boxing worldwide. The fact that these new policies will already be implemented in 2018 shows the commitment of our leadership team towards inclusion at all levels.”
