Awareness campaign advertises jobs for 'torturers' in Guardian and Independent1

Fundraising | Kirsty Weakley | 1 May 2012

Freedom from Torture has launched a campaign to raise awareness of torture around the world by placing mock job adverts in the recruitment sections of two newspapers.

Three adverts for jobs such as ‘senior human rights abuser for a Central African militia group’ or ‘torturer in a Middle East prison’ first appeared yesterday in the Guardian and the Independent.

Marketing company Ogilvy and Mather developed the campaign for free and paid for the advertising space.

The adverts direct the reader to a page on the charity’s website where they could donate, find out more about the charity and how to get involved.

Keith Best, chief executive of the charity said: “It is hard not to become desensitised to the stream of stories and images of conflict and suffering we all receive through the news everyday. These adverts are designed to make people stop in their tracks and look at torture from a new perspective.”

Best added: “We hope that these adverts will reach new audiences, who are not aware of the vital work Freedom from Torture does, and they will consider joining with us to help survivors and make a stand against torture as a result.”

Click on the thumbnails below to view the adverts.

Images

Directory: Freedom from Torture

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Peter Maple
Charity Fundraising Course Director
LSBU
2 May 2012

An interesting idea. Takes the Amnesty ideas of making torture look, at first glance, ordinary which then increases the shock factor when one reads more deeply.

Always good to see charities giving old ideas a new twist. Key though will be if it delivers a higher response rate than a conventional ask for involvement. Got to be worth testing as charities, it seems, are becoming more risk averse.

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