Mexico City has a new health campaign that aims to encourage mothers to breastfeed. However, health advocates found the campaign posters featuring topless celebrities distasteful.
The campaign ads feature local celebrities covered with only a banner across their breasts that says "No le des la espalda, dale pecho" which means "Don't give them your back, give them your breast." The advertisements are being criticized for showing slim females in provocative images.
Mexico City's aim to promote nursing has been criticized for showing unrealistic representation of motherhood to new mothers. The billboards show sexualized photos of topless and toned celebrities. Actresses Maribel Guardia and Camila Sodi and boxer Mariana "La Barby" Juarez are some of the celebrities shown in the ads. Juarez was shown in a billboard proudly showing off her tiny waist and hard abs.
"It's not only a very terrible campaign in terms of how it looks, but it's also the message that if you don't breast-feed, you are a bad mother and you are the one to blame," Regina Tames of reproductive rights group called GIRE said.
As per some activists who wrote a complaint to the human rights commission of Mexico City said the ads condemn mother instead of giving breast feeding information to them. They also said that the campaign reduced the social problem to just the mother instead of all the people involved in it such as the fathers, health authorities, workplaces, public spaces and the whole community.
Some say the campaign shames mothers who do not nurse rather than addressing the obstacles that make Mexico have the least number of mothers who breastfeed in Latin America. The World Health Organization suggests that new moms nurse exclusively for the infant's first six months but only 14 percent of mothers in Mexico do this. Maternity leaves, lack of good nutrition and opportunities to pump milk in the office keep Mexican mothers from doing it. Breastfeeding is not encouraged, and in many places is even prohibited at work.
The city health department may remake the campaign and change the ad's words and women featured. The health director refused to be interviewed but announced that the campaign will focus on opening two milk banks and 92 lactation rooms around the city. The topless celebrities were removed from the city's official website.
