Italy campaign to combat infertility stumbles with racist ad

tunisante September 24, 2016 Health

Italy’s Ministry of Health launched its first ‘Fertility Day’ on Thursday
Campaign aims to prevent infertility and sterility through education
One ad appeared to urge women to leave their black ‘bad companions’

Stephanie Linning for MailOnline

Published:
07:14 EST, 22 September 2016

|
Updated:
19:03 EST, 22 September 2016

e-mail

View
comments

An Italian public health campaign has been denounced as racist after it appeared to urge women to leave their black ‘bad companions’ if they wanted to fall pregnant.

Italy’s Ministry of Health launched its first ‘Fertility Day’ on Thursday in an attempt to prevent infertility and sterility through education and health programmes.

Some 700,000 Italians want to have children but can’t because of inferility problems. The country has one of Europe’s lowest birthrates.

The top image shows four smiling, light-skinned adults at the beach illustrating ‘good habits’ for reproductive health. The bottom image shows a group of young people, including a black man, smoking — an illustration of the ‘bad companions’ who should be ‘abandoned’

The new campaign, backed by Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin, focuses on tobacco, drug and alcohol abuse.

But one of the flyers was slammed as racist, forcing Ms Lorenzin to remove the advert on the eve of the event launch.

‘France is populated by imbeciles making wine and stinky…

Lawyer is suing Emirates airline after ‘enduring’ nine-hour…

The image shows four smiling, light-skinned adults at the beach illustrating ‘good habits’ for reproductive health.

The image was placed over a darker image of a group of young people, including a black man, smoking — an illustration of the ‘bad companions’ who should be ‘abandoned’.

The poster was widely criticised, even from within the governing Democratic Party.

This advert as criticised as being sexist for featuring a woman holding her belly with one hand and an hourglass with the other with the tagline: ‘Beauty doesn’t have an age. Fertility does’

A woman holds up an hourglass during a protest in front of the Italian Health Ministry during the launch of a ‘Fertility Day’ campaign, in Rome, Italy, referencing the advertisement

Ms Lorenzin said Thursday she had approved a different ad and didn’t know how the mix-up occurred, and that she had fired the official responsible.

Earlier adverts in the ‘Fertility Day’ campaign were criticized as being sexist for featuring a woman holding her belly with one hand and an hourglass with the other with the tagline: ‘Beauty doesn’t have an age. Fertility does.’

Another read: ‘Hurry up! Don’t wait for the stork.’

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the ‘Fertility Day’ launch, claiming the Health Ministry had ignored the real economic reasons behind Italy’s low birthrate.

They said a stagnant economy, low-paying, temporary work contracts for young people and insufficient public day care, were all contributing factors.

In 2015 Italy registered the lowest number of births in more than 150 years as the average childbearing age rose to 31.6.