Storm over save rhinos advert
After receiving a number of complaints from individual amputees and from organisations, the National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities complained to the Advertising Standards Authority.
The complaint was dismissed and the council will now ask the Human Rights Commission for an opinion.
The ad was created for Saving the Survivors, which rescues and rehabilitates rhino that have been left for dead. Four amputees took part in the ad. One of them, Partington Mtatabikwa, lost his right forearm and left leg in a mining accident.
The picture in the ad exposes his amputated arm and artificial leg. The payoff reads: "It could be worse. I could be a rhino."
The council claimed that the comparison was "at best, selfserving and manipulative". But ASA said the ad did not exploit the disabled but used the examples to gain support.
Source: The Times