Opening Address by Hanne Juncher – Human Rights Forum on Sport and Health (Paris, 16 December 2025)
It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the 4th Council of Europe Forum on Sport and Human Rights
This is an annual gathering that originated as an inter-governmental request, at the 15th Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport, which was held in Tbilisi, in Georgia, in 2018.
The Forum allows EPAS, the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport, to examine the intersection of sport and human rights through the prism of the work of the Council of Europe and partner organisations and countries.
Each year a new topical theme is selected, and we are meeting today, in Paris and in hybrid format, to focus on the important issue of health and well-being in, and through, sport. Since the COVID 19 pandemic, this has become a more visibly important topic.
The overarching objectives of today’s Forum are to facilitate exchanges and the sharing of best practices from a wide range of experts, athletes, academics, governmental representatives and sports bodies, all working across different sectors. By turning our attention to health and sport today, we validate those issues and the fact that they impact people’s lives directly - young, old and in between.
At the heart of our discussion is the principle that access to sport is deeply and fundamentally linked to the right to health. The Revised European Sports Charter from 2021 underlines this in its Article 10, which notes that this is essential for personal development and instrumental in the exercise of the rights to health, education, culture and participation in the life of the community.”
In other words, every person, child or adult, male or female, should be able to enjoy sport safely, as a means to a healthy life and an active role in society.
This year’s Forum focuses on two issues: mental health in sport and women’s health in sport. Those two themes have both risen to the top of the sport agendas of the Council of Europe, of many of our member states, and of the sports organisations with which we collaborate.
We know that sporting environments can profoundly affect mental health, for better or worse, just as we know that women and girls face unique health-related challenges in sport. By addressing these topics together, we acknowledge that the right to health in sport spans both psychological and physiological dimensions.
We also get to highlight the fact that promoting health through sport is a matter of equality and inclusion, as well as promoting safe sport. The right to the protection of health is enshrined in Article 11 of the European Social Charter. EPAS has identified work on health in sport as a strategic priority in its plans both for 2024 - 2025 and 2026 - 2027.
This gathering is also a direct continuation of the conversation we began earlier this year. On the 2025 International Women’s Day, EPAS convened a Breakfast Roundtable on Women’s Health and Sport. That roundtable exposed how vital and yet - until recently - how overlooked women’s health issues have been in sport.
Experts and athletes around the table highlighted a range of challenges female athletes face: from physical issues like over-training injuries, disordered eating, menstrual health, and pelvic floor injuries, to life events such as pregnancy and postpartum recovery, perimenopause and menopause, and the mental health pressures that accompany these experiences. The emerging message was that these issues, long on the margins, must be brought to the centre of our sports policies and practices.
We are not addressing these topics in isolation, on the contrary there is a growing momentum among our member states and partners to tackle both women’s health and mental health in sport.
Ensuring that women and girls have the same ability to benefit from sport, free from health-related barriers or discrimination, is a concern that has been strongly voiced by many member states, reflecting our governments’ interest in making sport safer, healthier, and more inclusive.
The growing political will behind this issue is also evident in the leadership of our members states, both at the Council of Europe and within the European Union: Cyprus has indicated, for example, that it will be a priority topic during its upcoming Presidency of the European Council.
On the women’s health front, our partnership with the European Union is yielding a major new initiative. I am pleased to highlight the upcoming joint EU - Council of Europe project entitled “Active and Equal: Women’s health in sport across generations”, which will run in 2026 and 2027.
The project will take a life-course approach to women’s participation in sport. Its primary objective is to close the gender gap in sport participation by addressing the health-related barriers that women may face across all stages of life.
From adolescence, through child-bearing years, into menopause and older age, women encounter physiological, psychological, and social factors that can hinder their involvement in sport. The “Active and Equal” project will help us identify and map such factors and develop practical tools to overcome them.
All these efforts feed into one another. They also align with broader European and international agendas. The EU’s current Work Plan for Sport has made health-enhancing physical activity and gender equality twin priorities. The World Health Organization’s strategies underline using a life-course approach to promoting women’s health and well-being through physical activity. We are therefore moving in step with our partners.
The conversations that emerge from today’s Forum will feed into tangible outcomes in the coming months and years. As we look to the future, I believe we can be optimistic about the lasting impact of the work that we - you - are doing today.
I also want to draw your attention in particular to the 19th Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport taking place in Monaco in October 2026.
The Ministerial Conference, under the theme of “Safer and healthier sport for all children”, will be a culmination of many strands of work, including those we are discussing today. It will be a chance for European Sports Ministers to take stock of progress and to commit to new actions for making sport safer and healthier for everyone, especially younger generations.
I will conclude by extending once again our welcome and our thanks to you all for being here.
I would encourage everyone to make the most of this day together. Please share your insights and possible solutions, and help us chart the next steps.
I wish us all a fruitful discussion, and I look forward to the ideas and commitments that will come out of this Forum.