Benetton boycott called

Benetton boycott called

By Darryl O'Donnell

BRISBANE — The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) demonstrated outside the Benetton clothing chain last week, claiming that Benetton was profiteering from images of people with AIDS.

An advertisement showing a man dying from AIDS, surrounded by his distressed family, is being used in a campaign promoting the "United Colours of Benetton".

In Melbourne, red paint was thrown on the windows of Benetton shops to represent the anger of people living with HIV/AIDS over the campaign.

Here, 30 ACT-UPpers raided the shop during a peak trading period, plastering "AIDS Profiteer" stickers on Benetton merchandise and inadvertently stickering an unfortunate sales assistant in the melee. Shoppers were startled as ACT-UPpers "died" outside the shop and had the outline of their bodies chalked on the ground.

ACT-UP Brisbane spokesperson Jeff Ward declared the United Colours of Benetton to be "the colours of money". ACT-UP Brisbane, Melbourne and other ACT-UP chapters have called for an international boycott of the clothing giant. "AIDS is now big business: but who's making a killing?", Ward said.

"It is obscene that multinational corporations are making huge amounts of money out of AIDS whilst services for people living with HIV/AIDS are inadequate and poorly funded and discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS pervades all aspects of health care delivery and social life."

Benetton franchises in Brisbane and Melbourne have also expressed their condemnation of the advertising campaign, with one franchise owner saying that she hated it as much as ACT-UP did.

From GLW issue 55