Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Nasty UNICEF campaign trashes "sluts", "dealers" and "drunks"


I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this UNICEF campaign by Prolam Y&R, Chile, on Ads of The World. I can see where they came from — children need a good education to get out of poverty and the cycle of crime, sex work and substance abuse — but is this really the best way to show that?



First of all, the ads show a "negative" rather than a "positive" outcome. I guess the message is, "if you don't help these kids, where will their education come from?" 

But it does it in such a way as to assume that people in poverty end up in the underworld simply because of bad influences around them, rather than because their socioeconomic circumstances leave them few options. To blame the "slut" (I assume they mean "prostitute"), the dealer and the substance abuser in this way is not helping. It's shaming.


UNICEF does good work in education. But if they did actually approva this ad (one never knows, these days) they could do a much better job on educating the public about the political, social and economic causes and outcomes of poverty.

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