Thursday, 10 July 2025

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) welcomes the ruling by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which upholds Caster Semenya’s appeal and confirms that her case against World Athletics was not fairly heard by the Swiss legal system. This marks another important step in a long and painful journey that has exposed the racism and sexism entrenched in international sport.

Since 2009, when Caster Semenya dominated the world stage as an 18-year-old world champion in the 800m, she has been the target of brutal and dehumanising treatment, forced to undergo sex tests, and subjected to media abuse. Her natural biological traits have been pathologised and criminalised through pseudo-scientific regulations rooted in misogyny.

In 2018, World Athletics introduced regulations requiring women with naturally high testosterone levels, like Semenya, to take hormone-suppressing drugs or undergo surgery to compete in certain events including the 800m. Semenya refused, and took her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2019 and then to the Swiss Supreme Court in 2020. Both rejected her, but in 2023, a lower chamber of the ECHR ruled in her favour, finding that her rights had been violated by the Court of Arbitration. Today’s Grand Chamber ruling confirms that decision.

What Semenya has faced is not about fairness in sport but about protecting whiteness and outdated ideas of femininity. Other African women athletes such as Christine Mboma, Beatrice Masilingi, and Annet Negesa have been similarly targeted, forced out of their events or into dangerous medical procedures. These testosterone-based rules are modern eugenics: using fake science to exclude African women from global competition, and must be abolished.

Although the ruling does not overturn the discriminatory regulations outright, it opens the door for further legal challenge. It also strengthens the global movement against the policing of women’s bodies in sport. We, therefore, commend Caster Semenya for continuing this fight, not for her own gain, but for all young athletes, especially African girls, who deserve the right to compete freely and without shame.

ISSUED BY ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Sinawo Thambo (National Spokesperson) 072 629 7422

Thembi Msane (National Spokesperson) 061 467 8169

Andiswa Madikazi (Parliament Media Liason) 069 516 4924

Thato Lebyane (Media Inquiries) 078 563 1581