International Women’s Day takes place on 8^th March each year with the theme for 2026 being Give To Gain to help encourage a mindset of generosity and collaboration. Give To Gain emphasises the power of reciprocity and support. When people, organisations, and communities give generously, opportunities and support for women increase.. When women thrive, we all rise.

Whether through donations, knowledge, resources, infrastructure, visibility, advocacy, education, training, mentoring, or time, contributing to women’s advancement helps create a more supportive and interconnected world.

We are all part of the solution to tackle violence against women and girls and education is key for this.

The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina held between 6^th and 22^nd February saw more women compete in more events than any other Winter Olympics with 47% of athletes being female, up from 44.7% in Beijing in 2022 with the Nodic Combined being the only event women cannot participate in and these games saw Women and Men will competing over the same distances in cross-country skiing for the first time and who can forget the success of Team GBs Tabby Stoecker and Matt Wilson in the mixed skeleton event.

The Summer Olympics in Paris 2024 was the first Olympic Games with full gender parity on the number of athletes competing –  women and men: 50/50.

NWG Network are a UK network of over 14,500 practitioners who disseminate information through our services, to professionals working in the field of child exploitation (CE) and human trafficking within the UK. We offer support, guidance and help to raise the profile of these crimes against children. We also provide updates on current themes and trends, deliver training, share national developments and policies, influence the development of national and local policy informed by practice.

NWG’s Sports team – Angie and Kev (who are funded by Sport England) have been delivering Active Bystander training to sports, leisure and physical activity clubs for over 3 years on tackling violence against women and girls.  They have delivered training to over 1200 people across this period all over England. The relationships developed with the Sport Welfare Officer network within the Active Partnerships have been a key part of our success with their hyper local knowledge and having attended our training are a great help to spreading the word of the importance of the sports community being an Active Bystanders.

With part of the theme for International Women’s Day 2026 being sharing knowledge, training and resources please do visit our website to view our sports resources: Voices in Sport and Safe to Play:

www.nwgnetwork.org/voices-in-sport

www.stop-ce.org/tackling-cse-in-sports

The NWG Networks Safeguarding in Sport team are happy to speak to colleagues from the sports, leisure and physical activity sectors.  Contact Angie,  Sports Engagement Lead on [email protected] or Kev, Safeguarding in Sport Lead, on [email protected]  to arrange an online meeting to discuss.

For more information please visit:

www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme

www.olympics.com/ioc/news/milano-cortina-2026-set-to-be-a-landmark-olympic-winter-games-for-gender-equality

https://www.olympics.com/ioc/olympic-agenda-reforms/gender-equality

www.nwgnetwork.org/voices-in-sport

www.stop-ce.org/tackling-cse-in-sports

Angie Harper

Sports Engagement Lead

NWG Network