Cape Town - Sixteen protesters were arrested in Stellenbosch after they protested outside of a Clicks store on Thursday.
This comes after major retailers announced that they are ditching TRESemmé, the US brand of hair-care products, following widespread outrage over an offensive advertisement shown on the Clicks website.
The EFF led an unprecedented protest across the country at around 425 of the 880 Clicks stores at the start of the week over the ad depicting black women’s hair as frizzy, dull, dry and damaged, while it described white women’s hair as normal, fine and flat.
Shoprite Checkers, Pick n Pay, Dis-Chem, Woolworths and Makro have decided to join Clicks in de-listing TRESemmé SA products, owned by Unilever, from their lists of suppliers.
“Given the recent concern about the language used by TRESemmé to advertise their product line, we have decided to remove the products from our shelves while we engage with the supplier,” said a Pick n Pay spokesperson.
Shoprite’s media team confirmed that all TRESemmé products have been removed from their shelves.
“We have confirmed that all TRESemmé products have been withdrawn from our shelves. The decision was taken on Tuesday and this has been implemented across our stores nationally,” said health and beauty retailer Dis-Chem on its Twitter page.
“Woolworths has taken the decision to remove all TRESemmé products from our shelves with immediate effect. As a company, we are deeply aware of our responsibility to confront racial prejudice and disparities when they are identified. We do not support the racial biases expressed in the TRESemmé campaign,” said a Woolworths spokesperson.
Although the Clicks Group was granted an interdict against EFF to prevent further protests on Tuesday, unrest at several Clicks stores was reported on Wednesday and yesterday.
EFF leader Julius Malema met representatives from Unilever at the EFF headquarters in Joburg yesterday morning.
In an earlier statement, the EFF said the meeting “comes at a request of Unilever, after the EFF gave its subsidiary product TRESemmé 24 hours to account for the racist advert they produced”.
The EFF said that it would continue protests across the country while engaging with Clicks and Unilever.
In a joint statement released following the meeting, the EFF and Unilever agreed that the advert was offensive and racist.
A demand made by the EFF that the names of the people responsible for the ad be made public was not agreed upon by Unilever, but the director involved in the campaign had left the company and the country, said the statement.
“The following decisions were agreed upon as a way forward: Unilever said it would remove TRESemmé SA products from all retail stores for a period of 10 days “as a demonstration of its remorse for the offensive and racist image” and that they would donate a minimum of 10000 sanitary towels and sanitisers to informal settlements identified by the EFF.
“In line with the above, the EFF and Unilever have put the matter in question to rest. We have agreed to hold further discussions on transformation within Unilever relating to procurement, empowerment, employment and localisation,” said the joint statement.
Some of the resolutions made were: The withdrawal of all TRESemmé products, replaced with locally produced products; Clicks will donate a minimum of 50 000 sanitary towels, and 50 000 sanitisers and masks to rural and informal settlements identified by the EFF.
Clicks will also award a scholarship to five students to pursue pharmaceutical qualifications for the year 2021. All scholarships would be awarded to black, rural, African females orphaned by HIV/Aids.
EFF councillor in the City council, Mbulelo Dwane, said: “We fully abide by what the organisation has decided with Unilever. We’ll continue with our peaceful protest until when the EFF collective leadership commands us otherwise. We’re busy protesting and closing all Clicks until further notice from leadership.”
Police spokesperson Andrè Traut confirmed that 16 protesters were arrested yesterday in Stellenbosch for contravening a court order after they protested outside of a Clicks store. One of the protesters is also facing a charge of assaulting a police officer.
“Once charged, the arrested persons are due to make a court appearance in Stellenbosch,” said Traut.
Cape Argus