A Moroccan state television channel has apologized for airing a segment showing women how to conceal signs of domestic violence with makeup.
The segment — which was aired last week in a daily program on Channel 2M, two days before the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women — shows a makeup artist applying concealer to a woman with fake swollen bruises around her eyes, which the host says is to show the type of injury inflicted from domestic violence.
"Make sure to use loose powder to fix the makeup, so if you have to work throughout the day, the bruises don’t show," the makeup artist says in the segment, before recommending the best brands of foundation and concealer to use to cover the signs of violence.
"We hope these beauty tips will help you carry on with your daily life," she adds.
Host spends more time talking about the best brand of makeup to cover domestic violence bruises than the actual iss… https://t.co/aitpoOV7h6
After the segment went viral on Twitter, it prompted outrage from Moroccan women and activists across the world who demanded a public apology and called for the clip to be removed from the website.
Campaigners also set up a petition, which reads: "As Moroccan women and as feminist activists in Morocco, and in the name of all Moroccan people, we denounce the message of normalization with violence against women."
Following the criticism, the channel removed the video segment from its website and issued an apology, saying it was an "editorial error of judgment" that didn't address the severity of the subject of violence against women.
But campaigners have since demanded further action to be taken by the TV channel, calling for "severe" sanctions against the show for "normalizing" violence against women.
"There is no excuse for such a 'mistake' when it is so extraordinarily purposeful, and passes through many hands before it would even hit a TV screen," one viewer commented on the Channel 2M Facebook page. "Apology not accepted."
