DEPARTMENT STORE ARNOTTS has come under fire for a t-shirt depicting a children watching a woman pole dancing.
Ruhama, an organisation that works with women affected by prostitution and sexual exploitation, tweeted the image yesterday, saying the organisation was ‘surprised’ Arnotts would ‘sell t-shirts that objectify women’.
Spokesperson for the organisation, Gerardine Rowley, told TheJournal.ie that a member of the public contacted them after seeing the t-shirt in Arnotts.
“We were really surprised that a leading, family-orientated department store would have such a t-shirt on sale.”
“The t-shirt really just normalises the sex trade for young boys,” she added, saying a visit to a lap dance club ‘isn’t a rite of a passage’.
The lap dancing industry can be a gateway to prostitution. It’s not harmless or innocent fun.
Rowley added that dozens of people had either tweeted their anger over the image, or contacted the agency over it.
However, within two hours of the tweet last night, Arnotts’ official account responded to say action was being taken.
In a statement to DailyEdge.ie, a spokesperson for Annotts said:
A t-shirt that was stocked in our men’s department was brought to our attention yesterday evening as it caused offence and it was removed from both the floor and our website yesterday evening. The T-Shirt brand in question deals in humorous products, but in this instance we apologise for the unintentional offence caused. Once it was brought to our attention we acted immediately.
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