Like gatherings of the kind, the Earth Social Conference had a safer-space policy and a well-being team to support its implementation.

Unfortunately, we had some difficult experiences related to sexual harassment. Due to tight schedules of the conference, the lack of skills in transformative culture and lack of cooperation by the accused, the issue was left unresolved. This notice serves as a status update, as the experience might impact future work.

In more than a dozen occasions during the week-long conference, Cesar Leal from Ciencia Local who was initially in the conference coordination team and was also the main venue host, showed unacceptable behavior towards several female comrades. More than four opportunities (private conversations, meeting with members of the coordination team, the evaluation meeting, short messages in private correspondences etc.) were given to him to address the issue, apologize and show behaviour change. He unfortunately did not collaborate with the process and was therefore taken off the conference coordination team.

Lacking his collaboration in the process, we unfortunately failed to reach a more transformative outcome than providing some safety to the female comrades involved.

Sexual harassment is not acceptable in any event of any kind, and cannot be tolerated particularly in progressive movements such as those the Earth Social Conference would like to see itself in. Besides being an act of sexism and violence, such behavior is also extremely tiresome for the organizers, who, on top their facilitation and coordination roles, had to handle the impacts of the harassment itself as well as find ways of supporting a behavior change and of collectively protecting the affected comrades. We reiterate our commitment to build a movement that is aware of systems of oppression and is actively engaged in transforming our groups, our alliances, our movements and our communities.

This notice is to inform you about this situation. The conference coordination team does not have further steps to pursue the issue.

August 2024