World famous luxury clothing brand Balenciaga launched a campaign a few days ago featuring teddy bears dressed in BDSM gear, held by little children.

Even more shocking, in additional photos for this campaign, documents were shown that made reference to the 2002 Supreme Court case which made it legal to create simulated child sexual abuse material, commonly known as “child porn.”

Exodus Cry joined with many others in calling out Balenciaga for essentially sexualizing children in this campaign, and our Instagram video became one of the most viewed IG posts on the topic, amassing nearly 400,000 views.

The next day, Balenciaga issued a statement apologizing for including children and announced they were pulling the campaign and “taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set.”

We’ll claim this as a swift and collective WIN for everyone who called out this billion-dollar company. 

To be sure, this situation begs for further investigation, and an answer as to how and why this ever got approved in the first place.

But it’s clear that Balenciaga got the message: it’s NEVER OKAY to sexualize children.

We know this will serve as a lesson to many other companies, whether large or small, who are tempted to introduce similar disturbing themes into their products or advertising.

Ending the sexualization of children has been a major focus for Exodus Cry and we’re just getting started.

Next year, we’ll be releasing film projects and furthering campaigns specifically spotlighting the critical need to end pornography that promotes child sexual abuse.

With your support, we’ll get these projects finished, help them to reach and impact millions, and push for laws that end this atrocity.

There is tangible momentum on this cause and now is the time to press this forward. Now is the time to change the story!

Give to our year-end campaign below to help create a world where children can be free.