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September 6, 2001
For Immediate
Release
For More Information Contact:
Dr. Susan Linn, 617-232-8390;
Susan_Linn@jbcc.harvard.edu
Dr. Diane Levin, (617) 879-2167;
Dlevin@Wheelock.edu
Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children
Honors Government of Sweden’s Stand on Marketing to Kids
(New
York City)
The Government of Sweden will be honored with the
Inspirational Leadership
Award
for its pioneering efforts in protecting children from the onslaught of
commercial marketing. Stockholm has prohibited all TV advertising aimed at
children under the age of 12 since 1991. Sweden is also leading work within the
European Union to ban television advertising to children.
“Sweden is showing how individual governments can act to protect children from
commercial exploitation,” says Alvin Poussaint, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at
Harvard Medical School and Director of the Media Center at Boston’s Judge Baker
Children's Center. Dr. Poussaint will present the Inspirational Leadership
Award on behalf of Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children, a coalition of more
than 20 national and regional organizations working on behalf of children.
Ingela Thalén, Minister responsible for Children and Family Affairs at Ministry
of Health and Social Affairs in Stockholm says the Government is proud and
honored to accept. Thalén says, “Promoting and protecting the rights of the
child, including the right not to be exploited, is a matter of utmost importance
to the Swedish Government. With this prize, SCEC provides an important
acknowledgement of this work and an encouragement to continue along this path.”
The
presentation takes place during a
Noon rally on Monday,
September 10 across 42nd Street from the Grand Hyatt Hotel
(42nd
St. and Park Ave.)
in New York City.
Meanwhile, inside the Hyatt, the annual “Golden Marble” Awards will be presented
to ad industry companies. Those awards celebrate marketing to kids regardless
of the affect of their products and marketing messages on the well-being of
children and families.
The rally
follows the Commercialization of Childhood: How Marketing Harms Children summit,
from 9 AM to Noon at the Grand Hyatt, where distinguished educators,
psychologists, children’s advocates and physicians will address the damage
caused by marketing to children in the U.S. See
www.commercialexploitation.com.
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