“They are the least, but there are situations of harassment and abuse and it must be stopped now.” An activist took the floor during the 2022 Confederal Assembly of Ecologists in Action to warn about cases of “harassment and abuse” within the organization and urgently request the approval of an ethical code that would establish the principles under which any person linked to the association had to behave. This is how it appears in the video in which Ecologistas recorded the content of that Assembly, its highest governing body together with the Federal Congress.
The organization reacted this Thursday to the investigation opened by a court in Arganda del Rey, in Madrid, for a complaint of sexual assault against one of its founders and most relevant members, Santiago Martín Barajas. elDiario.es compiled the testimonies of three women, including the complainant.
In one of the cases it is a woman who works in the organization. In a statement, Ecologistas showed their “dismay” at the events that, they claimed, they had learned about through the call the previous afternoon from elDiario.es. “Nor had we had prior knowledge of the complaint or its status,” they said. The organization has opened an internal process to clarify what happened.
However, the court summons for Santiago Martín Barajas did not arrive at his home, but at the headquarters of Ecologistas en Acción in Madrid, and it did so last Tuesday. It was a person from the organization who informed the activist that the paper had arrived from the court.
In the end, the victim ends up lowering his head, and dissolves or leaves the association.
On the other hand, a year and a half before the complaint filed by MGF that gave rise to the investigation, the intervention of this activist at the XXIV Confederal Assembly of Ecologists in Action, which was held in December 2022 in Córdoba, highlighted I publicly express the need to act against cases of harassment and abuse.
He did so after two activists spoke about the launch of the Care commissions. Immediately afterwards, the activist took the floor to thank them for their work and help “try to change the way of working” of the organization. “However, I see that for Care to work there has to be a conflict in which both parties recognize the conflict. In this association, unfortunately, there are the fewest cases, but we are experiencing cases of abuse and harassment and that is not a conflict, it goes much further,” he said.
The silence of the victims
The activist’s intervention continued: “In the end, the victim ends up lowering his head, and dissolves or leaves the association.” For this reason, he pointed out, it was “urgent” to have an ethical or deontological code that would mark the ideological principles under which any member should act. “And not because we have our share of power, seniority, power, age… we can exercise certain actions,” he added. The intervention concluded by “begging” the Assembly to commit to having this code as soon as possible “because we have been doing actions for many years, the minor ones, but there are situations of harassment and abuse and it is necessary to cut it now.”
We told him that we thought it was a very serious accusation and that we had to act because it was our responsibility and that person said it was no big deal, that they were old things.
Carmen Duce
— coordinator of Ecologists in Action
The coordinator of the Organization of Ecologists in Action, Carmen Duce, who was then in the secretariat (a body made up of 18 people) and which is in charge of daily decisions, assures that after her intervention they were “stunned” and went to speak with this activist who “recanted.” “We told him that we thought it was a very serious accusation and that we had to act because it was our responsibility and that person said it was no big deal, that it was old stuff,” says Duce. At that time, the organization was already working on several protocols.
It was in May 2023 when Ecologistas en Acción approved the protocol against sexual and workplace harassment, although they have others on restorative justice and how to address conflicts within the organization. “We don’t know what he was referring to, we had nothing to hold on to, but apart from that we have continued working,” says Carmen Duce. Until now, he says, the association has never implemented the anti-harassment protocol, although it did implement the restorative justice protocol on one occasion.
The Confederal Assembly, like the one in which this activist participated, is not just any meeting: it is the highest governing body – along with the Federal Congress – in Ecologists in Action. It sets out the “guidelines for the progress of the Confederation,” its statutes explain. Among other issues, it is capable of “deciding on all those issues that are not extraordinary in nature, but are of general interest.”
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