Spanish airline removes ad criticized as promoting sexual tourism to Cuba
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MADRID, Spain: The Spanish airline Iberia has withdrawn a cartoon ad that depicts a baby boy frolicking on a beach with buxom black Cuban ladies after consumer groups complained it is insulting to women and encourages sexual tourism. The pair of women — with exaggerated lips and tiny, tight shorts on broad hips — massage and pamper the white Spanish infant after he arrives in Havana on a free trip from Iberia. At one point, lounging at a seaside bar, he sings “Come on honey, take me to the crib.” Iberia’s web site ran the video as part of a contest offering free trips to celebrate the site’s 10th anniversary. The clip was yanked last week after less than 10 days on the page, following a complaint by the Federation of Consumers in Action, although it has resurfaced on YouTube. Ileana Fuentes, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban Feminist Network, said the cartoon plays to the idea that for Spanish men, Cuba is the place to go for easy sex with poor, black women. “Obviously, it is an ad aimed at the male population. It is a male, white baby being told … ‘yeah, you can go to this island and these nice sexy, sexual black women will pamper you to death. They will do anything for you.’ That is a sexual tourism ad of the subtle kind,” Fuentes said from Miami. |