Violence against women
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In Egypt, the manufacturer is at the heart of a controversy after broadcasting an advertisement trivializing street harassment. In a country where he is a real scourge, the spot does not pass.
A man driving a sparkling car almost runs over a passerby. The young woman, surprised, stops and gives the driver a worried look. With phlegm, the latter then takes a photo of the pedestrian thanks to a camera on the windshield. The stolen photo is immediately displayed on his phone, which he looks with a satisfied air. “Capture every beautiful moment», We can read at the end of the commercial. This sequence is the one that Citroën saw fit to stage in Egypt to extol the merits of the connected camera technology, deployed on its new C4 vehicle.
The advertising did not fail to react on Arabic-speaking social networks. From famous women’s activists or anonymous accounts, publications criticizing the footage have poured in. Indignant comments and accounts of real harassment situations intersected there. All shared the same observation: Citroën’s choice to send such advertising to Egypt is symptomatic of the trivialization of violence against women in the country. Especially since the man who leads in advertising is Amr Diab, one of the biggest stars of the Arab world, whose hits with millions of views resonate across the region.
Reem Abdellatif, Egyptian-American women’s rights activist, explains to Release: “The original advertisement for the Citroën features a man and his friend, who clearly consent to be photographed…