LONDON, UK: A major British retailer apologised and stopped selling a padded bikini top for young girls Wednesday, 14 April 2010, after criticism that the garment over-sexualised children and pandered to paedophiles.
Primark said sorry after the swimsuit for seven-year-olds was featured on the front of the mass-market Sun daily under the headline "Paedo bikini", and pledged to donate profits from the product to a children's charity.
"Primark has taken note of the concern this morning regarding the sale of certain bikini tops for girls, a product line that sells in relatively small quantities," said a spokesman.
"The company has stopped the sale of this product line with immediate effect. Primark will donate all the profits made from this product line to a children's charity, and apologises to customers for any offence caused."
Penny Nicholls of the Children's Society lobby group said she was "glad that Primark has responded to public concern about this serious issue".
"We know from our research that commercial pressures towards premature sexualisation and unprincipled advertising are damaging children's well-being," she said.
Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron, who is campaigning to oust Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the 6 May elections, had earlier condemned the padded bikini tops as "completely disgraceful".
"I'm delighted they've taken the decision to withdraw this product," he said afterwards.
"The sort of country I want is one where it is not just the government (that) feels outraged about the early commercialisation and sexualisation of our children but companies should stop doing it," he told the BBC.
The prime minister, for his part, had backed a recent "Let Girls be Girls" campaign by online parents' group Mumsnet.
"All of us as parents can recognise there's something wrong when companies are pushing our kids into acting like little grown-ups when they should be enjoying being children," Brown said.
Source: AFP
