Spotted

Today is the opening day of the winter Olympics here in Vancouver and the City has thoughtfully outfitted the streets with additional garbage receptacles labelled for recycling or waste. In the past few days I’ve noticed that the stickers seen above have been popping up on these signs. Whilst I applaud the sentiment I can’t help wonder if the association with garbage was intentional or if the choice was purely based on the visibility of the signs. It seems the garbage angle could have been leveraged to link to the messaging and yield a stronger association with the topic of human trafficking. As it is, the tie in with the Olympics feels a little contrived and might even confuse viewers because of its lack of specificity. I understand the organisation has a variety of approaches but I would be curious to hear what concrete results (website hits) might be achieved through this facet of the campaign.

I visited the site and the campaign is an initiative of UBC Faculty of Law and REED (Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity), an organisation which has been active since 2005. They are planning direct actions for the duration of the Olympics but there is no mention of time or place. I’ll update if I spot one.