Believe it or not, there is a phrase used to describe this kind of practice. This exploitive use of photography and video footage is sometimes called “poverty porn.”
It is just coincidence that after writing about Boxing Day, a time of charitable giving on the day after Christmas, that this writer would want to do another story on charitable giving from an entirely different perspective.
But while giving in times of horrible need, as was seen in the Haiti and Nepal earthquakes, or the 2004 Christmas or Boxing Day Tsunami are events that are out of the realm of ordinary, everyday living, poverty porn is used for one primary purpose, and that is to raise money by creating guilt and uncomfortable feelings.
I’m talking about the perhaps, well-meaning, but questionable tactics used by nonprofits and charitable groups to gain empathy and contributions from people using exploitive imagery of people living in unbelievably destitute conditions. When I think about it, animal rescue groups also use the tactics, too.
But the thing we forget while we whither uncomfortably in our nice homes, cringing with guilt as we search for a pencil to write down the number, is that what we are seeing is the worst of the worst, and that is wrong. One critic of poverty porn says it is nothing but a rating game, in other words, a contest to see which group gets the most contributions based on how bad the poor deprived subjects in their documentary or ad seems.
The golden age of charitable giving
The 1980s saw the height of charitable giving, especially with the “punch-in-the-gut” images of young African children, their bellies distended with malnutrition and their eyes covered in flies becoming the trend. There were several very successful campaigns, some raising over $150 million to combat famine.
Even UNICEF and Oxfam used a lesser form of poverty porn to raise awareness to the plight of children and families in countries around the world who were, and are still in desperate situations, as does Save the Children, one of the most-well known aid organizations in the world, operating in more than 120 countries.
However, because of a lot of criticism about the illegal use of images of people in this manner, in 1989, many nonprofits and charities signed a code of conduct, although it was nonbinding, from the General Assembly of European NGOs that scorn “pathetic images” and “images which fuel prejudice.” Things quieted down considerably, at least until a few years ago.
Save the Children is now under scrutiny for the flagrant use of poverty porn, especially in the 2014 commercial showing a woman giving birth at a clinic in Liberia to an unresponsive child, reports CNN News. The text at the end of the commercial reads: “For a million newborns every year, their first day is also their last.”
The images don’t always reflect the truth
Critics argue that many of the commercials and documentaries seen in Europe, North America, and other developed countries portray imagery that will create stereotypes and are also prejudicial to the people and countries in the films.
Jennifer Lentfer, the director of communications at IDEX, a San Francisco-based international grant-maker, and a former lecturer on global development communications at Georgetown University says, “Poverty, conflict, disasters, injustice is heartbreaking, but it doesn’t mean people are victims.” She adds, “People in developing countries are not incapable or passively awaiting rescue.”
And Lentfer is right. When we see an image of children from a favela in Rio de Janiero drinking out of a pool of dirty water, it does not reflect the conditions all over Brazil or South America. Nor does similar images mean that all of Africa is sitting helplessly by waiting for the world to rescue them, either.
Mark Rank, professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis mentions that in America, we too are touched by poverty, more than many people realize. He points out that compared to other Western industrialized countries, the U.S. has the highest level of poverty, as well as the highest level of income and wealth inequality.
In his book, “One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All,” Rank says about 60 percent of Americans will experience poverty lasting, at least, one year sometime between the ages of 20 and 75. For an eye-opening picture, take some time to peruse this book.
And we here in the U.S. are also guilty of using poverty porn. Think about the streets in Detroit full of abandoned houses, underpasses where the homeless live in L.A., or the gaunt faces of the poor in Appalachia. But Rank wants us to see the real pictures inside the poverty porn, the ones we aren’t shown.
“We focus a lot of time on … inner-city, minority groups living in dilapidated housing as an image of poverty in this country,” he said. “But the majority of folks who experience poverty do not fit that image. In fact, they’re more likely to be the person down the block going through a spell of unemployment.”
Does this mean we should turn our backs on the world’s less fortunate? No, I don’t think so. But I do see what is behind much of the imagery in commercials and videos of extreme poverty in many countries. But dumping money on people isn’t going to have a long-term effect on ridding poverty unless other actions are included. And that has to start with the government of the impoverished country.
Here is one last thing to think about. In India, Brazil and a number of other countries in South America, Asia, and Africa, we are asked to feed the children, or buy goats and calves so babies can have milk. This is just an idea, of course, but shouldn’t the governments of those countries be seeing to the welfare of their people? Just a thought.
