La Strada – Ukraine angered over anti-children advertising

The International Women’s Human Rights Centre “La Strada – Ukraine” has issued a statement in protest over advertisements by the company VIANOR which it considers a “flagrant insult to children, disregard for the rights of the child, universal human values, a sign of a lack of understanding of parental responsibility and exploitation of the image of a child.”

“It has been standard for Ukrainian advertising to compare things with pictures of women which are a sign of gender discrimination.

However the new creation of Ukrainian advertisers is a “serious step forward”: however automobile tyres are personified in images of four small children whom, according to the ad, parents are ready to exchange for new, better ones. One furthermore is shown the frightened eyes of children being taken somewhere, with the mother saying for ones that won’t get in the way. It then transpired that these are tyres.

However the verbal text and the visual images through almost half the ad link children’s images and anti-child words of the so-called parents.

This ad should be immediately removed and prohibited from showing.

At the same time we consider it necessary to carry out work with the heads of information and advertising agencies and the media on not allowing the creation of information and advertising production which exploits the image of children, presents children as artificial objects that can be treated as things, infringes children’s rights, etc.”

Kateryna Levchenko

International Women’s Human Rights Centre “La Strada – Ukraine”

Within a day of publication of the following statement, the company involved has, at least verbally, promised to remove the offending advertisement