Benetton exploits rescue photo
BENETTON was criticised yesterday for running an advertising campaign featuring a photograph of migrants being rescued at sea.
The image shows volunteers distributing life jackets to survivors into a dinghy. The charity which carried out the rescue, SOS Méditerranée, said Benetton had been disrespectful.
It tweeted: ‘The charity fully dissociates itself from this campaign which displays a picture taken while our teams were rescuing people in distress at sea on June 9.
‘The dignity of survivors must be respected at all times. The human tragedy at stake in the Mediterranean must never be used for any commercial purposes. SOS Méditerranée does not give its consent for any commercial use of its pictures.’ Benetton published two publicity photographs on its Twitter account featuring migrants, one credited to SOS Méditerranée and another to Italian news agency ANSA.
It used the caption ‘United Colours of Benetton’. The fashion firm has a history of using controversial images.
The pictures were taken during SOS Méditerranée missions involving the Aquarius, which rescued 630 migrants last week.
The vessel made the headlines because Italy’s new government refused to allow the migrants to disembark.
They were eventually taken to Spain. Among them were a number of children.