An Italian government campaign hoping to boost the nation’s flagging birthrate was on Wednesday condemned as racist just weeks after its original promotional material was panned for being sexist.
Italian Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin ordered changes to the campaign at the start of this month after captioned images intended to promote an upcoming Fertility Day were denounced as patronizing, sexist and hectoring.
On Wednesday she was forced to pull one of the replacement images, which had been intended to promote a healthy lifestyle by juxtaposing images of “good” and “bad” lifestyles.
In the first photograph, white, smiling couples relax by the sea, while in the second a mixed group including dark-skinned youths with Afro hair smoke cigarettes, light up a bong and appear to be sniffing drugs.
The photographs, captioned “good habits to get into” and “bad friends to let go of,” set off another media storm, with users ridiculing the ministry, saying it had swapped sexism for racism.
Lorenzin released a statement saying she was launching an internal investigation and had sacked the ministry’s communications director.
Italy has the lowest birthrate in the EU and one of the lowest in the world, with only eight babies born for every 1,000 residents last year, according to EU figures released in July.
A total of 485,000 babies were born in Italy last year, a record low and less than half the level of the 1960s.
Lorenzin said earlier this year that the current “catastrophic decline” would reduce the number of newborns to 350,000 per year within a decade unless action was taken to reverse the trend.
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