The “man-free” musical festival that was held back in August has recently been found to have violated discrimination laws.
The Swedish event, Statement Festival took place in Gothenburg earlier this year and was the first of it’s kind. The festival was organized by comedian Emma Knyckare after multiple sexual assault reports kept surfacing at festivals. The event prided itself on being, “the worlds first major music festival for women, transgender, and non-binary people only”.
What’s catching the most heat is the event’s description that reads, “man-free”. This description is being labeled an “infringement of discrimination law”.
Discrimination Ombudsman’s press officer had this to say about it,
“It is important to point out what an infringement is. These are the statements made before the festival, what they wrote on their website. Still, we haven’t been able to prove that someone would have been discriminated against in connection with the implementation or that someone would have been rejected.”
“Clearly, we believe that sexual abuse, especially at festivals, is a serious problem. So we are looking forward to trying to correct this. However, it shouldn’t happen in a way that violates the law, which their statements in the media and their website do.”
