SWoSt Local Meeting #1 04.-05.03.2021

Prior to the next monthly meeting of SWOST, the team of Latvia consisting of two members - Sandija Zalupe and Kaspars Saknins, held a local two-day meeting to commonly seek and identify the documents related to gender stereotypes in Latvia and any references to documents in European Union Member States. The team of Latvia browsed homepages of all sport functionaries that impact legislation of Latvia in sport issues and the decision-maker homepages – Ministry of Education and Science, Olympic Committee of Latvia, Olympic Union of Latvia and Sports Federations' Council of Latvia. As none of the previously mentioned organizations had any material in relation to the gender stereotypes in sport, the team of Latvia went deeper in the research and directly communicated the organizations. It turned out the there are no specific gender stereotype legislation in sport except for Sports Law Section 3: "Basic Principles to be followed in the Field of Sport", which states 1) the principle of equality, which provides that every person have the right to engage in sport. On the basis of this sentence gender equality in sports is balanced throughout Latvia, starting with the 4 main organizations and moving on to vocational oriented education organizations – sport schools and sport clubs of Latvia, grassroots sport clubs and general education schools.

Additionally, it was decided that the team of Latvia within the month of March calls together its members  - the 83 sport schools, to find out if any of the sport schools and sport clubs have their own inner documents that govern the gender equality balance between men and women, as well as to discuss any other documents, articles, researches to be found.