Anna Cordell's change.org petition
Sign and share the petition here!
I am an Australian fashion designer, singer-songwriter and mother of 5. Until recently, I was also an Etsy seller.
But then I saw a range of really distressing merchandise on Etsy and I shut down my shop straight away.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Child sex abuse dolls and body parts, child abuse and incest-themed products with slogans begging a father to use his own daughter. Not just words but images depicting young girls as wanting to be violated.
So I’ve launched this petition because I don’t think child sexual abuse should be normalised and turned into something to make money from. Children’s charities say incest-themed images give permission to predators and put children at greater risk.
Anna Cordell
These products appear alongside cards for Father’s Day and books and baby clothes. Girls shouldn’t be presented as sexually available to anyone, let alone a parent.
As a mother of five who, like all the mums I know, wants to protect their children from abuse, I feel I need to do something. Corporate Social Responsibility is really important. Etsy is a bad corporate citizen, enabling significant harm to the most vulnerable in our community.
Etsy must act immediately to remove these sellers and others like them and commit to not allowing this to happen again.
(Note: If you’d like to directly support this campaign please donate to Collective Shout which is backing me.)
Petition letter
Dear Etsy: Josh Silverman (Chief Executive Officer), Fred Wilson (Chair), Gary Briggs (Director), M. Michele Burns (Director), Edith Cooper (Director), Jonathan D. Klein (Director), Melissa Reiff (Director), Margaret "Peggy" Smyth (Director)
My name is Anna Cordell. I am an Australian fashion designer, singer-songwriter and mother of 5. Until recently, I was also an Etsy seller of made-to-order high quality designer masks.
But then I saw a range of products trivialising and normalising child sex abuse and I shut down my shop immediately. I know I wasn’t the only one to do that.
I was shocked and disappointed to see child sex abuse dolls and body parts, child abuse and incest-themed products like t-shirts and temporary tattoos with slogans ‘Daddy’s little c*ck whore’, ‘Harder Daddy’ and ‘Daddy’s c*m dumpster’.
One image depicts a girl pulling down pink shorts and the words ‘Daddy Please’ across her genitals. (I’ve censored it because it could be illegal for me to show it). How is this acceptable to you?
Etsy promotes itself as a platform selling vintage, bespoke, hand-crafted wares, supporting small businesses like mine. Most of the people I know there are mothers with kids, selling part-time to help their families. I thought your company was ethical, with quality products that weren’t mass produced. That’s why I had liked selling there.
Now I have to ask why are you protecting those profiting from trivialising child sexual abuse? How can you let this happen when you say your mission is to “keep commerce human”?
As the mother of five daughters, I can’t stand by and let you sell the fetishisation of girls. Normalising the idea that girls are sexually available and want to be used by their own fathers leads to their abuse in real life.
I am asking you urgently to stop propping up sellers of paedophilic fantasies. Remove these accounts immediately. Stop trashing your own brand and clean up your act now.
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