Australians have accused H&M of sexualizing children through advertising for school uniforms

Australian social media users have accused H&M of sexualizing children. The reason was the advertisement of school uniforms.

After the criticism, the brand apologized and removed it, according to CNN.

The ad featured two elementary school girls dressed in school uniforms. Its slogan is “Make those heads turn in H&M’s Back to School fashion”.

Advertising:

Turn head is an expression that means “to be so beautiful, unusual, or striking as to attract a lot of attention.”

Australians have accused H&M of sexualizing children through advertising for school uniforms. Photo: mariakray/Depositphotos

In social networks, users called the ad “creepy” and “disturbing.” They also began to recall their own stories about how they were “stared at” while studying at school.

One of the first to speak against it was the Australian writer Melinda Tankard Reist, whose work is dedicated to highlighting the problems of sexualization and harm from pornography.

“What are your intentions for this sponsored Facebook ad? Little school girls don’t usually want to ‘turn heads.’

A lot of the children I work with in schools want to be left alone, to learn and have fun, rather than draw unwanted attention to their appearance.” – she wrote on the X social network.

After criticism on social media, H&M removed the ad.

Advertising:

“We deeply regret the offense it has caused and we are considering how we will present our campaigns in the future.” – the company said.

It will be recalled that earlier H&M got into a scandal due to the fact that they dressed a dark-skinned boy in a “Coolest Monkey” hoodie for advertising.

Read also: “Sexualization of a child”: the network is outraged by the Odessa designer’s collection of children’s underwear