*Content Warning*
Earlier in the year we launched a campaign calling out online apparel company TeePublic for selling harmful and degrading clothing, including onesies for infants, with slogans glorifying violence against women and exploitation of children.
Supporters swiftly took to social media to call out TeePublic for turning a blind eye to the sexualisation of children and profiting off the degradation and abuse of women.
After 7-weeks of calling out TeePublic we celebrated progress thanks to all of our supporters who took action.
We met with parent company Articore, received a verbal and written apology and an official undertaking to remove these products. Thousands of baby onesies were removed from the platform. Articore also verbally committed to work on improving its tech and moderating systems to stop it happening again stating:
‘The technical issue that led to mature content appearing on kids' clothing has been addressed by our engineering team. In addition, our content moderation team has been performing manual checks to confirm that this issue has indeed been addressed.’
While we commend TeePublic for removing exploitative children’s clothing from the platform, an abundance of merch depicting women being strangled, bound, handcuffed, on a leash and chained up remains on the site. Some of the apparel features slogans including 'Choke me daddy', 'Daddy's cumslut', 'Daddy's little slut', 'I'm just a hole, sir'', 'I love submissive women' and 'Gaslight me harder, daddy'.
After multiple meetings with the Articore Group CEO and Managing Director Martin Hosking some of the items we highlighted have been removed from the site. There remains however a large portion of violent and degrading content that has not been removed that is harmful to the broader community, particularly to women and girls.
These humiliating and exploitative images of women as bodies to be used, abused, bound and strangled for male sexual gratification are incompatible with gender equality. This kind of messaging normalising and encouraging female oppression and subordination have no place in a culture that values women as human beings worthy of dignity and respect. See more examples here.
Despite our attempts to work with TeePublic and its parent company Articore behind the scenes, it appears as though public pressure is required once again for them to take meaningful action!
Sign and share the petition
It is evident the company has not gone far enough to ensure their website is free from harmful and degrading pornographic content.
TeePublic needs to do a thorough review of its website and remove the thousands of designs still available on the platform that turn violence against women into merely an adornment on the apparel it sells.
Sign the petition and demand TeePublic enforce their own terms and conditions and remove all content from the site that is obscene, abusive and pornographic. We are also calling on Articore to invest in the betterment of their tech solutions and moderating systems to ensure such destructive merchandise stops finding a place in their market.
Can you help us reach 5k signatures by the end of this month?
See Also:
Teepublic flogs child abuse onesies and incites violence against women
Child Protection Advocates condemn TeePublic child abuse baby clothes
An apology + 1000’s of pornified baby clothes to be pulled! Our meeting with Articore
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