SWEDEN (CelebrityAccess) – Sweden’s Discrimination Ombudsman (DO) has ruled that the country’s Statement Festival, an event aimed at women which took place in Gothenburg this past summer, violated discrimination law by describing itself as being ‘man free.’
While the ruling, which was issued on Monday, noted that the festival had not in practice enforced the ban on men and that “no differentiation based on sex was made between visitors at entry,” the DO said that “public statements which discourage a certain group from attending an event” amount to discrimination, and therefore the festival was in breach of the law prohibiting gender-based discrimination.
Statement Festival was launched by comedian Emma Knyckare in response to a rash of reported sexual offenses at other music festivals across the globe. Last year things got so bad, Bråvalla, Sweden’s biggest music festival, canceled its 2018 event altogether.
