It was probably intended to be clever.
But appropriating the language of the global traffickers in the bodies of little girls in the name of a “good cause” was never going to be a good idea.
‘Innocent. Young. Available. Experience the sensation of buying a girl’. These words serve to further entrench the idea that little girls warrant sexual interest and that you can buy them.
I would go further and suggest that using the photographs of real girls under these slogans is unethical.
Leaving aside the question of whether purchasing a Hannah Montanna backback can rescue these girls from forced marriage, sexual servitude and terrorism, did these little girls and their families understand they would be used in this way?
The way the camera pans up and down the body of one of the girls is creepy.
Writing on the MS blog, Catherine A Traywick makes the case against eroticising small children in advertising even when it’s done in the name of ‘charity’.
Today in totally misguided philanthropy, we have “The Girl Store,” a presumably well-intentioned girl empowerment project that—for some utterly illogical reason—masquerades as a child pornography site.
Head on over to The Girl Store and you’ll be greeted by shaky footage of a disheveled Indian girl smiling bashfully as an unknown cameraperson pans up and down her body, lingering on her little hands, before finally settling on her face. The accompanying text reads:
100% genuine girls
…young…
…innocent…
…and available.
Experience the sensation of buying a girl
….her life back.
…Buy a girl before someone else does.
…why does the sale of notebooks and pencils warrant the clear and deliberate eroticization of small children?
You can read the full blog post here:
And please sign the Care2 petition
6 Responses
Just sent an email to them, I am truly disgusted.
Good morning
I have just been directed to your website and I cannot emphasise enough the disgust I feel at the marketing approach you are using. Your site entry looks like a child pornography site, the words you use, the panning up and down an innocent child’s body, nothing short of abusive. The ‘products’ page is no better. You are perpetuating what you say you are working to stop, the display of children as commodities and sexual objects.
If you are truly working to support children and families, you might project a little of the innocence that children are entitled to with a few facts and figures rather than pornography’ing them even more. This is a continued abuse of innocent children.
Debbie
I guess they were trying to turn the prevailing eroticism thing around.
Far better to actually do your marketing without appealing to (and therefore legitimising) the prurient interest in under age sex/ child sex/ pedophilia
i think they need a new marketing team.
I totally agree – it’s both disturbing and inappropriate to see this organization harnessing the language and techniques of abusers in the name of stopping the abuse.
That said, I think I can understand why they thought it might be effective – attempting to engage and draw in the viewer by painting a vivid picture of child trafficking. They go too far, though, and end up with just another example of charity porn, creating warm philanthropic fuzzies at the expense of an already impoverished human dignity. People should never be commodified, now matter how worthy the cause.
The male-centric myopic glasses are once again firmly in place because note it is not ‘children’ but girl children who are the ones being sexually exploited by male dominated corporate bodies in the name of charity.
Note too there are no boy children represented as men’s disposable sexual service stations and I wonder why? Ah yes because males are autonomous human beings are they not whereas females of whatever age are not human but just men’s disposable sexual service stations.
Agreeing here with you all.
My daughter at the moment is in Thailand doing her uni placement with a group who help young girls out of prostitution, & no way is their website perverting (if that’s the word I need here) what they live to do.
I was feeling for those girls standing there, not knowing where to look, what to do with their hands etc. No way….will write to them too.
Thanks for revealing this to us.