WTA’s stance on Peng has made it human rights champion

REUTERS: The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has become the world’s “most effective” human rights organisation over its leadership on the Peng Shuai case and willingness to lose money to stand by its principles, said Kelley Eckels Currie, former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues.

The whereabouts of Peng Shuai, a former tennis doubles world number one, became a matter of international concern for nearly three weeks after she posted a message on social media alleging that a former top Chinese government official had sexually assaulted her. She re-appeared over the weekend in Beijing.

The WTA, the main organisational body for women’s tennis internationally, has called for a transparent investigation and assurances about Peng’s safety and well-being, and has threatened to pull out of tournaments in China over the matter.

“If you had told me a week-and-a-half ago that the Women’s Tennis Association was going to be the most effective and bravest human rights organisation in the world I would have thought you were bananas but here we are,” Currie told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

“The WTA is essentially putting more than a billion dollars on the line over the life of a single member of the Women’s Tennis Association.” In 25 years of working in human rights, she had never seen any group “actually put something on the line like this for human rights,” said Currie, the former US Representative at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, nominated by then-President Donald Trump.