Greta Thunberg has responded to a cartoon sticker depicting an image of her being sexually assaulted.
The disturbing image shows an unclothed cartoon figure labelled ‘Greta’ with braids being pulled back by large hands. At the bottom of the cartoon is the sign for a Canadian oil drilling company called X-Site Energy Services, who have denied any involvement in the horrifying image’s creation.
X-Site has claimed it had ‘nothing to do with the printing or distribution of the stickers’.
Now, the teen climate activist has responded, claiming it simply means her opposition is getting desperate.
Taking to Twitter, Thunberg wrote:
They are starting to get more and more desperate. This shows that we’re winning.
Despite her calm and collected response, many of the 17-year-old’s supporters are understandably disgusted over the sticker’s creation.
‘Those oil company execs who made that sticker of Greta Thunberg, A Child, engaging in sexual activity deserve to [be] fired,’ one woman vented on Twitter, adding, ‘F*cking perverts’.
‘F*cking oil company thinks they’re funny for depicting the sexual assault of a child huh?’ another raged. ‘F*ck you, you are the reason this world is a piece of sh*t right now. That sticker was a petty and cowardly attempt at firing back at Greta and whoever drew it should be ashamed’.
According to reports in the Huffington Post, the sticker came to people’s attention after it was spotted by Canadian Michelle Narang, who cried when she made the grim discovery.
Narang, who lives in Rocky Mountain House in west-central Alberta, supports Canadian energy due to her relatives earning a living in the industry and their support of the non-profit she works for, said the sticker is ‘not something Alberta or Albertans need’.
She said she never wants her 13-year-old son to see the sticker or to be okay with violence against women, so she decided to share to it Facebook as a way to call it out, writing: ‘This company represents everything that the [oil and gas] industry needs to fight against’.
Narang added:
Silence never creates change. It’s sad to me (the sticker) went through a supply chain of people, who thought about it, printed it and distributed it. It blows my mind anyone would think it’s funny.
The image was investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who determined the cartoon is not considered child pornography, telling Huff Post: ‘According to our experts, the image does not meet the criteria for it to constitute a criminal offence’.
X-Site General Manager Doug Sparrow also confirmed to City News Edmonton his company had shut down all social media operations due to attacks while also re-iterating neither X-Site nor any of their employees was involved in making the sticker.
No matter which side of the environmental debate you’re on, it is never okay to incite violence against women. Props to Greta for handling such a hideous situation so calmly.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.