15/03/2023
Statement regarding FRFI:
Our IWD23 protest was organised as a collaborative and inclusive event for feminists to come together, celebrate each other and demand better for everyone affected by misogyny. We have been very vocal in our opposition to groups like FRFI, RCG and the SWP given their mishandling of abuse allegations within their organisations, and despite our members facing personal backlash because of this, we will continue to stand against any organisation that doesn’t strive to keep its members safe.
We want to clear up a few things about FRFI’s attendance last Wednesday:
- Liverpool Sisterhood did not invite FRFI to attend. We would never encourage their attendance at our events and we would never encourage anyone to attend theirs.
- We cannot stop anyone from attending a protest, but we tried to engage with them to ask them to leave and were met with abuse.
- A 17-year-old girl from their organisation was demanding to speak, and when we told her no, we were accused of silencing young women’s voices.
- In order to de-escalate a situation that was becoming increasingly hostile and was looking to ruin the event for everyone, we agreed that she could speak as an individual as long as she didn’t mention FRFI or RCG.
- This was not held up at her end, and she introduced herself as speaking from FRFI. We stress this was not the agreement, and we very much regret that this happened. Our own members have faced personalised attacks from this group as a result of past opposition to them, and this started to happen during the speech.
- We stated after she finished that we cannot and will not support or endorse FRFI, and were again met with abuse. This carried on until they left due to pressure from our members.
We are also aware that our unwillingness to work with groups like FRFI/RCG/SWP has been called “factionalism” in the past, and just want to make it very clear that - while we absolutely do not have to agree with other groups on everything in order to work with them, this is an issue of abuse mishandling, not simply a political difference. Standing up against gendered abuse and violence is at the core of our organising and we will not make exceptions for groups who do not protect their members against these issues.
We take very seriously the safety of activists and we, as always, look forward to continuing and forging meaningful connections with groups who are committed to keeping activists safe.
If anyone has any questions regarding the above, or would like more info, please get in touch.