They report "sexual harassment" and "sexist attitudes" at the housing encampment in Palma

PalmaThe feminist, queer, anti-capitalist and anti-fascist collective Flama has announced its withdrawal from the organization of the housing rights encampment in Palma, doing so by denouncing, as it asserts, “sexist behaviors and attitudes” and “situations of sexual harassment” during the protest's organizational process.

In a statement released on its Instagram profile, the collective explains that it made the decision after an internal process of “debate and reflection” and asserts that the dynamics it detected at the encampment “directly contradict” the principles of mutual care and social transformation that, in its view, should govern the space. “As a feminist collective, we have an unnegotiable commitment to point out and disable these dynamics wherever they occur,” Flama states in the statement.

The collective also links its decision to the composition of its own membership. As it explains, it is a group with a small and entirely voluntary militant force, which also includes minors. Flama asserts that the protection, integrity, and safety of these militants are an “absolute priority” and that they cannot allow them to participate in “hostile or unsafe spaces”.

Flama says it will not abandon the fight for housing

The withdrawal, however, does not mean, according to the same collective, a distancing from the demands of the encampment. Flama emphasizes that its decision “does not respond to a distancing from the fight for the right to housing” nor from its objectives.

The group maintains that organized protest and peaceful civil disobedience, such as encampments, are “legitimate and essential” tools to combat speculation and defend the right to housing. In fact, it asserts that it will continue to participate “actively” in the social movement, but that it distances itself from the “concrete dynamics” which, according to its denunciation, have become established in the management of the Palma encampment.

The protest at Plaça d’Espanya began in the early hours of September 29th, following the demonstration called at Plaça de Cort in defense of the right to housing. During the first few days, the encampment gradually incorporated tents and participants and was organized through open assemblies and various working groups.

The encampment has been the point of continuity in Palma for the mobilizations for the right to housing that have spread through various cities in the State following the case of Maricarmen, the 87-year-old woman evicted from the home where she had lived for more than seven decades. In Palma, the participants have defended maintaining the protest as a tool for mobilization and collective organization.

“Solidarity, unconditional support, and affection”

In the statement, Flama also expresses its support for the people who, as it claims, have been affected by the attitudes it denounces. The collective makes its space available to them as a “safe place for active listening, accompaniment, and mutual care”.

“We are making effective our withdrawal from the organization of the encampment, at the same time that we send all our solidarity, unconditional support, and affection to the comrades who have been affected by these attitudes”, the text points out.

Flama closes the statement by claiming the need to maintain a feminist perspective within social movements and ensures it will continue working in spaces of a “popular, anti-capitalist, and anti-fascist” nature.

The statement does not specify which cases of harassment or sexist behavior it denounces, nor does it identify the people to whom it attributes these behaviors. Its withdrawal occurs, therefore, in the framework of an internal discrepancy regarding the functioning and dynamics of the encampment's organizational space, while the collective maintains that it will continue to be involved in the mobilization for the right to housing.