World Karate Federation and NO MORE launch a global fight against gender-based violence
The World Karate Federation (WKF) and the NO MORE Foundation have entered into a global partnership focused on preventing gender-based, domestic and sexual violence, with karate serving as a platform for education, awareness-raising, protection of vulnerable groups and the development of a safer sporting environment. The agreement was publicly presented on August 21, 2026, and according to the WKF announcement, the cooperation is expected to connect the federation's international network, athletes and existing educational programs with NO MORE's experience in campaigns against domestic and sexual violence. Particular attention will be directed toward women, children, adolescents and other groups that may be exposed to a greater risk of violence or abuse. The partners are announcing programs that will not be limited to competitive karate, but will include prevention, safeguarding, child protection, education and the creation of safer communities. In this way, WKF is further expanding the social dimension of its activities, relying on a model it has already been developing in recent years through the Guardian Girls Karate program.
A partnership that aims to turn sport into a channel for prevention
According to information published by the World Karate Federation, the goal of the new agreement is not merely a joint communications campaign, but the creation of a framework for developing concrete prevention, education and protection programs. WKF is expected to bring into the project its global sports network, the visibility of international competitions, athletes who can act as public role models, and educational programs that are already implemented through national and continental structures. NO MORE, on the other hand, brings experience in designing campaigns, working with institutions, media, companies and sports organizations, as well as in developing tools for recognizing and preventing domestic and sexual violence. This division of roles shows that the partnership is attempting to combine the reach of sport with the expertise of an organization whose primary focus is violence prevention and changing social patterns.
WKF President Antonio Espinós said that the agreement expands the federation's engagement in preventing gender-based violence and confirms its effort to use the values of karate beyond the competitive arena. According to his statement published alongside the presentation of the partnership, WKF and NO MORE want to develop wide-reaching campaigns that will simultaneously strengthen the position of women, protect vulnerable groups and contribute to safer and more inclusive communities. NO MORE Executive Director Pamela Zaballa emphasized that combating gender-based violence requires cooperation across national and sectoral boundaries, and described sport as a platform capable of reaching audiences that traditional campaigns often fail to reach. Her message particularly highlights the possibility of longer-term cultural change, meaning an influence on behaviors and attitudes rather than merely a one-off increase in awareness. The partners' ability to turn these general goals into measurable programs and standards will be crucial in assessing the agreement's real impact.
NO MORE has been using sport, media and major events for years
The NO MORE Foundation states that it was launched in 2013 as a global initiative to end domestic and sexual violence through raising awareness, encouraging action and changing culture. According to the organization's data, its network today includes more than 1,400 partner organizations and more than 40 national, local and international chapters. Its work relies on public campaigns, educational resources, partnerships and tools intended for communities, while among the sectors it particularly uses to spread its messages it lists media, entertainment, technology and sport. Over the years, the organization has worked with major companies and sports organizations, including NFL, Uber, Verizon, Bank of America, Viacom and other partners listed on its website.
The organization is also using sport as a channel in current projects. In March 2026, NO MORE announced that it was participating in a Brazilian initiative that will use the period leading up to the FIFA Women's World Cup 2027 as a platform for raising awareness of violence against women and girls. The project includes public campaigns, educational content for schools, communities and sports institutions, as well as activities connected with the major international football event. This example shows why the partnership with WKF is a logical continuation of the organization's strategy: sports federations have infrastructure, events and communication channels that can be used throughout the year and across a large number of countries. At the same time, cooperation with an organization specializing in violence prevention can help sports bodies ensure that campaigns do not remain limited to symbolic messages, but instead include educational content, protection procedures and clearer mechanisms for referrals to assistance.
Guardian Girls Karate has already built an international network
The new partnership directly builds on Guardian Girls Karate, a program that has become one of the most visible examples of WKF's social projects. According to Guardian Girls International, WKF signed a memorandum with the Koyamada International Foundation in May 2022, and later that year Guardian Girls Karate was launched in cooperation with UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. The first publicly highlighted events were held in Los Angeles in October 2022, where a memorandum was signed and a self-defense seminar for women and girls was organized. The program's mission is defined as empowering women and adolescent girls through karate, self-defense, the development of self-confidence, resilience and leadership, and the creation of practical tools for recognizing and responding to situations of violence. The program does not proceed from the idea that responsibility for preventing violence should be shifted onto potential victims, but instead links physical skills with education, awareness of boundaries, situational assessment and information about available support.
During 2026, Guardian Girls Karate expanded further. The Panamerican Karate Federation announced that an international program was held in Mexico City from June 12 to 15, attended by representatives of 17 national federations from the Americas. The goal was to train instructors and increase the capacity of national federations to implement the program locally. In Australia, Griffith University on the Gold Coast completed an eight-week program for female students and employees in May, which organizers said was the first full Guardian Girls Karate course conducted in a university environment. At the beginning of July 2026, a seminar was also held in Alexandria, Egypt, alongside the Mediterranean Karate Championships, with an emphasis on personal safety, threat prevention and practical self-defense techniques. Such examples show that WKF already has an operational network through which some of the future activities with NO MORE could be rapidly expanded.
Global data show why prevention remains urgent
The new partnership comes at a time when international health institutions warn that progress in reducing violence against women is very slow. In an updated fact sheet dated June 18, 2026, the World Health Organization states that approximately 31.6 percent of women and girls worldwide, or around 840 million people, have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner during their lifetime. WHO also states that more than one fifth of girls aged 15 to 19 who have been married or in a relationship have already experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner. The organization warns that the average annual decline in the prevalence of intimate partner violence over the past two decades has amounted to only about 0.2 percent.
WHO describes gender-based violence as a serious public health problem, an issue of gender equality and a violation of human rights. The consequences may include physical injuries, mental health problems, sexual and reproductive consequences, and long-term effects on families and communities. For this reason, contemporary approaches to prevention increasingly involve multiple sectors at the same time: healthcare, education, social services, the justice system, local communities, workplaces and sport. In this context, karate federations and clubs can have a particularly important role because they regularly work with children, adolescents and young adults and often create long-lasting relationships among athletes, coaches and families. However, precisely such relationships of trust also require clear standards of protection, accountability and action in cases where abuse is reported.
Safeguarding is becoming as important as sporting performance
One of the key elements of the new agreement is safeguarding, a concept that in international sport encompasses systems for the prevention of and protection against abuse, exploitation, harassment and other forms of harm. In the context of children and adolescents, this includes rules of conduct for coaches and officials, safe ways of reporting problems, education about boundaries and the responsibility of organizations to respond to risks. The success of the partnership between WKF and NO MORE will therefore not depend solely on the number of campaigns or social media posts, but also on whether federations and clubs are offered clear, applicable and locally adaptable procedures. It will be particularly important for education not to remain limited to elite athletes, but to reach coaches, parents, referees, volunteers and people working with younger age groups.
Karate has several specific advantages in this regard. Training traditionally includes discipline, body control, work on self-confidence and the repetition of responses in stressful situations, so some of these methods can be adapted to personal safety programs. At the same time, physical self-defense cannot replace institutional prevention, legal protection, support for victims and changes to the social norms that enable violence. That is why a model combining practical skills with education about recognizing violence, boundaries, seeking help and community responsibility is important. Guardian Girls Karate has already been developing in this direction, and the inclusion of NO MORE gives the partnership additional expertise in communication, prevention and connecting sports projects with global campaigns.
Wide reach also brings an obligation to produce measurable results
The World Karate Federation is headquartered in Madrid and operates through a broad international network of national federations, which means that the new agreement could potentially reach a large number of athletes, coaches and clubs across several continents. However, global reach also means that programs must be adapted to different legal systems, cultural contexts and the availability of local support services. What is effective in a university program in Australia may not be transferable without adaptation to a community with different legislation, infrastructure or attitudes toward reporting violence. It will therefore be important to see how WKF and NO MORE define minimum global standards and how much room they leave to national federations for local implementation. Equally important is the question of how results will be monitored, for example through the number of trained instructors, the number of participating clubs, the availability of protection procedures, participants' knowledge before and after education, and the quality of reporting mechanisms.
The partnership also creates space for greater involvement of male athletes and coaches in prevention. Although women and girls are among the groups most affected by gender-based violence, international organizations have emphasized for years that prevention is not the task only of those who are exposed to risk. Changing norms requires working with entire communities, including men and boys, people in positions of authority and organizations that shape everyday rules of behavior. NO MORE has built much of its public campaigns around precisely such a model, including projects with athletes that encourage bystanders to respond and reject justifications for violence. If this approach is systematically transferred into karate, the new agreement could encompass not only self-defense and protection, but also education about relationships, responsibility, respect and intervention when someone notices risky behavior.
From a memorandum to real change in clubs and communities
For WKF, the new partnership represents a continuation of a broader strategy in which karate aims to position itself as a social and educational tool, not merely a competitive sport. In recent years, alongside Guardian Girls, the federation has also been developing other social projects, but the agreement with NO MORE is particularly important because of its focus on an issue that requires expertise beyond the field of sport. Success will therefore depend on the quality of cooperation with experts in violence prevention, child protection, mental health and victim support, as well as on the willingness of sports structures to adopt clear standards and accept responsibility for their implementation. Campaigns can increase the visibility of the problem, but long-term impact emerges only when procedures, knowledge and behavior within organizations change. Precisely this transition from a public message to everyday practice will be the most important test of the global agreement.
At this point, the partners have not publicly presented a detailed multi-year schedule for all future activities, so it remains unclear how individual programs will be distributed among countries and events and which indicators will be used to monitor impact. Nevertheless, the existing Guardian Girls Karate infrastructure, WKF's international network and NO MORE's experience in global campaigns provide the cooperation with an operational foundation that already exists instead of having to be built from scratch. If the announced programs include continuous education, safeguarding, local protocols and connections with professional support services, the partnership could become one of the more visible examples of using martial arts in violence prevention. For the sports community, this represents both an opportunity and an obligation: the popularity, trust and influence enjoyed by sport can be powerful tools for social change, but only if they are accompanied by professional standards and clear accountability.
Sources:
- World Karate Federation – official announcement on the global partnership between WKF and the NO MORE Foundation and its objectives (link)
- NO MORE Foundation – information on the organization's mission, partner network, international chapters and operating model (link)
- World Health Organization – updated global data on the prevalence of violence against women and girls, published on June 18, 2026 (link)
- Guardian Girls International – history and mission of the Guardian Girls Karate program and cooperation with WKF and UNFPA (link)
- Panamerican Karate Federation – information on the Guardian Girls Karate program and the training of representatives of 17 national federations in Mexico City in June 2026 (link)
- NO MORE Foundation – information on the Brazilian initiative connected with the 2027 Women's World Cup and the use of sport as a platform for violence prevention (link)